“Nana, that’s just not fair,” was all I could muster about my great-grandmother quitting smoking in her late 80s — because her senile dementia had gotten so bad she forgot that she smoked. I was in the middle of my third failed attempt to give up the cigarettes, and more than a little cranky at the time.
Of course, there’s nothing fair about senile dementia, either.
Talk about unfair, years earlier Nana went in for her big 75th birthday physical, which included a chest x-ray. Her doctor looked at the film and said, “It’s good to see you quit smoking, Ms. V.”
She had most emphatically not quit smoking. Nana still went through two packs of Parliaments a day, every day, just as she had for six decades. But her lungs somehow looked great.
I did finally quit for real 20 years ago, but every once in a blue moon, I’m still a little cranky about it.
It just isn’t fair.
Years before we met, my former best friend David (we didn’t have a falling out or anything, but I’ll get to the “former” momentarily) survived a youthful indiscretion involving the Reno mob, a South American drug cartel, and a trip to Colombia that ended badly. I won’t share the details, mostly because I still have a hard time believing them.
He shouldn’t have lived, but somehow did. Several years later, however, it wasn’t the smokes or the heavy drinking (the memories of Colombia lingered) that got him. He died of leukemia at age 41, thanks to one flawed gene somewhere deep in his DNA. David’s countdown clock for refractory acute myeloid leukemia started ticking at conception.
Seriously, it just isn’t fair.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr sat down this week with his communications director, Katie Miller, for a cute little MAHA chat.
At one point, Katie dared to ask, “Who [in the administration] has the most unhinged eating habits?”
Kennedy didn’t hesitate for more than a second before shrugging, rolling his eyes slightly, and replying, “The president.”
“The interesting thing about the president,” Kennedy continued, “is that he eats really bad food, which is McDonald’s and candy and Diet Coke.” Nevertheless, RFK admitted, Trump has “the constitution of a deity.”
“I don’t know how he’s alive, but he is… He’s just pumping himself full of poison all day long.”
Yet the president’s health is good, according to his latest physical, and I don’t mean “good for a man his age.” His October health report included phrases like “exceptional health,” “strong cardiovascular performance,” and “perfectly normal” imaging.
Closing in on 80, Trump somehow thrives on a diet of Big Macs, candy, and Diet Coke — and it just isn’t fair.
You can watch the clip of RFK’s exasperation here.
Maybe Trump has lucky genes. His mother, Mary, lived to be 88, and his dad, Fred, died at 93. Neither seemed to be health nuts at all, and both were part of a generation that had red meat with a side of beef for dinner, and had never heard of fiber
I kid, but not by much — including this fun X exchange from December.
Yes but you see genetics isn’t fair and nutrition science is made up nonsense
— Drew (@onefiftyfivemm) December 15, 2025
I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call nutrition science “made-up nonsense,” because for most people, a balanced diet leads to better health outcomes than the diet I prefer, which would consist primarily of Columbus Craft Meats Secchi salami, cheese popcorn, and scotch.
Genes do mean a lot, however.
Julia Child actually lived to be 91, and attributed her longevity to red meat and gin — really. I hope to make it to 80 or so, and my diet increasingly consists of salad and Rosuvastatin.
It just isn’t fair, and maybe nobody should understand that better than a Kennedy, a family where great wealth and great tragedy are all wrapped up together in some cruel cosmic joke.
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