Aging

The older I get, the more I believe that we should respect the elderly. I'm at that age where things are falling apart like the warranty just expired. First but not least is ...

Appearance

When I was growing up, guys tried to look like Robert Redford. Nowadays we're all trying not to look like Robert Redford.

At least Redford has hair. My own peers are fighting baldness as if it were fatal. One decided to shave his head and grow a goatee ("The Satan Look"); another purchased a magical hair-growing potion ("The Chia Pet Look"). A third just stands outside the hairdresser with his nose pressed up against the window.

I don't see the big deal about receding hairlines. What we should really be afraid of is advancing hairlines ("The Chewbacca Look").

Wrinkles are also big. According to the beauty guru at JC Penney, my crow's feet are beyond ointment and I really shouldn't have smiled so much. My "problem area" is the forehead, where the creases are so deep that pug dogs cringe at the sight.

But never mind the face. We decaying people have to worry about...

Losing Our Minds

In recent years my math has gone from a B in trigonometry to this: Save $2.15 on four cans of tuna ... Four goes into ... Something cents per ounce ... Honey, do we really NEED tuna?

Basic Math Loss comes from having too much stuff in our head. By middle age our math is squeezed out by user names, passwords, credit cards, PIN codes, bank accounts, phone, fax, cell, pager -- lyrics to songs we don't even like!

My sister takes those herbal memory pills. What are they called? It doesn't matter; we'll just ask our ...

Doctors

I found myself at the doctor bracing my shoulder.

"I don't know what happened, doc. All I did was mop the floor."

[Men: Let this be a lesson about mopping.]

Doctor Lynn couldn't hear me; he was enthralled by another part of my body once considered private. Physicals now included full-cavity searches such as those described by alien abductees.

Which brings us to another pressing concern...

Accidental Flatulence

In our youth, chance emissions are confined to the health club, but as we get older they start to slip out with the least provocation. A good joke will do it.

Recently I ruined a candlelight moment by fizzing in the bathwater.

My wife held me by the shoulders and spoke in her slow voice (for people who are slow): "Do you or do you not have control?"

I stared at the suds before finally confessing: "Ninety percent."

So it goes.

Closing Thoughts

I'll leave you with a list that I compiled at the park, where I was stranded because I could not recall the combination of a lock that I have owned since high school.

"You Know You're Getting Old When..."

• people compliment how good you used to look
• you work sex into the laundry cycle
• instead of bending down to pick things up, you learn to use your toes
• there's no space between your pants and your waste -- excuse me, waist
• you're only interested in one thing, but damn if you can remember what it is
• you not only talk to inanimate objects but expect a reply
• you wake up at daybreak no matter what time you go to sleep, which is promptly ten o'clock

I myself am not giving in. I plan to get so old that my family sends me back to the kiddy table, where the children will be doing a puzzle for ages five and up, but I'll be older than Up.

"Grandpa, that piece is upside down ... Grandpa, take that out of your mouth..."

And we'll all look back to the good old days, when all they had to worry about was fizz in the bathwater.