Like Sand Through The Hourglass...

I'm getting old.
   I know that I've lamented my impending old-man-ness* from time to time... all right, I've done it frequently, but the process is speeding up. I can feel my dewy youth slipping away like the orderly who steals your pills from your dresser when you're just resting your eyes. I've noticed my slide by several factors:

   I listen to NPR almost exclusively. All right, I admit I've been doing that for over a decade, but that just shows you how early I began my descent into advanced old-man-ity.*

   I harbor a secret longing nostalgia for 70's AM radio. Which I guess isn't secret any more. I wasn't old enough to have any say in what we listened to in the car, and my parents really, really, really liked lame music, so that's what we listened to. Lame AM 70's radio. Lately I've been appreciating Abba and Hall and Oates. I may need someone to put me out of my misery before I discover Leo Sayer again.

   I do a killer Fred Mertz impression. I did it just this afternoon, dead-on perfect. It's only a matter of time before I too wear my pants rib-cage high like Fred, and not in a mocking way.

   I talk to myself in the grocery store. 'Big deal,' you say, 'lots of people do that to remember what they need to buy.' But talking to myself while running errands is the preliminary stage before I start muttering all the time. And start chewing an imaginary mouthful of something. And get huge tufts of hair growing out of my ears.

   Sweet things are too sweet. I understand there is more sugar in prepared food now than there used to be, but I'm losing what used to be an epic sweet tooth. When I was in the full bloom of youth I could almost polish off an entire pie. So maybe aging prematurely isn't entirely bad.

   I understand how governmental policies from twenty years ago have shaped the society we have now. If that doesn't make me an old man before my time, I don't know what else would. Reganomics is directly responsible for the mess we're in now, and if you want I can tell you exactly why. And get off my lawn, you stupid kids!

   I have a lawn.

   I know how escrow works.

   I know how to navigate State and Federal bureaucracy to establish a business and pay taxes.

   I go to the post office at least once a week.


There's nothing I can do about it. I'm done. Gone. Might as well get me a Hoveround and a helper monkey. Really. At least the helper monkey, I've always wanted a helper monkey. His name would be Mr. Chimps, which is a reference to a 72-year-old film. Old men fondly remember old films.

   ADDENDUM: I think Saturday Night Live is funny again. For years, decades, it was definitely not at all funny, in any way. It's funny again. I think maybe it's because they stopped trying to do 'Saturday Night Live' and just started doing funny stuff again. Or maybe I'm just old...

* old-man-dom? old-man-itude?