Old Bones the Wonder Horse Ages Disgracefully

 

I always thought I'd hang on to my youthful attitude till I died - probably jumping off something far too tall with a bedsheet tied to my belt loops to act as a parachute.

I swore I'd never be one of those old geezers who talks baby talk to a spoiled rotten dog, talks incessantly about what part of his crumbling body hurts worse today, the details of his latest surgery and has a "favorite chair".

So here I sit, propped up in an old Lazy Boy with it's seat shaped exactly like my butt at the increasingly ripe old age of 57. Daisy Pooh my spoiled rotten dog lies sprawled at my feet in a tryptophan coma, the results of a two day turkey mooch-a-thon.  My wife is burning a cinnamon candle on the bookshelf by my chair. She says I smell like BenGay and cabbage - not exactly what I was looking for, but if you use BenGay, there ain't much way to avoid smelling like BenGay.  And splashing on half a bottle of Old Spice only makes it worse.

I've tried it.

And why is it that the older you get the more your pants migrate away from where they are supposed to hang? Either they ride up higher and higher till you have to reach under your armpit to get your car keys or you have to hang a chain around your neck with one end attached to your wallet because your arms aren't long enough to reach your hip pocket anymore.

And hair begins to grow in places you don't want it and to fall out of places you do.  You suddenly have a favorite plate, a favorite coffee cup and a favorite spoon.  You suddenly discover you've been wearing loud Hawaiian shirts and really ugly shorts that you do NOT have the knees floor.
You know the end has arrived the day you look down and discover you're wearing black socks and sandals with your shorts and you don't even care because you're going to Wal-Mart and everybody wears their ugly clothes to Wal-Mart.

You have box in the garage with pinups of women who are dead now and you've seriously considered hanging some up in the garage and you don't care what your wife says about it.
And your wife wouldn't say anything about it anyway, except to mutter something like , "There's no fool like an old fool."

I went to the church pot luck last week and sat by myself at a table.  Three kids and a manic-depressive schizophrenic came to sit by me. The kids thought I was somebody's grandpa and thought maybe I'd give them some money. The schizophrenic elderly lady that came with them was about 85. Before we started up a conversation, she felt the need to assure me that she knew I was married and promised not to hit on me.

Now I'm manic-depressive........mostly depressive!

© 2011 by Tom King