Ripening Faster
Than A Week-old Avocado
by George Beckerman
How can I tell?
Well, I went into the kitchen to get something,
and not only did I forget what it was, I was in
the wrong kitchen. So I apologized to my neighbor
and went home.
And it’s not just the memory. Hairlines
recede more rapidly than the Colorado River.
Trips to the bathroom far outnumber trips to the
foul line. That of course would be if I was
still playing basketball. Or jogging,
skiing and tennis. My anatomy has rebelled
against those activities. Couple more years and
my calorie-burning will be limited to putting on
my socks and shoes.
Let’s not even get into the hourly need to
empty my bladder. Especially when I’m
away from home. Whenever I confront a
urinal and start my usual senior trickle, someone
inevitably enters the restroom, pulls up
alongside and immediately hits the back of the
porcelain with the force of a firehose (I miss
those days) And he’s zipped up and gone
before I could wish him well. And me, I’m
still dribbling like Jerry West, oops, too dated,
I mean Stephan Curry.
My dermatologist, however, had good news for me.
Those blemishes on my arm are not melanoma. They’re
age spots. I guess that’s what passes for
positivity at this juncture of life. I shrugged
it off and jumped next door to my ophthalmologist
where I barely made it to the fourth line of the
eye chart. One prescription change later, I was
ready for lunch with my buddy Ben. Or bff
according to this suddenly acronym-crazy universe.
Of course the current topic of conversation these
days, regardless of generation is “Seen
anything good on tv lately?” I confidently
replied that I really loved that show with what’shisname?
And the actor what’shername did a fabulous
job. When Ben asked me what network it was on, we
spent the rest of the meal trying to figure out
how to use Google. It was good seeing Ben and I
told him to send regards to what’shername, a.k.a,
his wife.
I was happy to make it home to my wife what’shername
for an afternoon of uninterrupted sex. Yeah,
right. Since we’re both asleep before
the ten o’clock news, even though we’ve
napped before the six o’clock news, if we
made love, we’d have to do it before the
Today Show. Sometimes you’re so tired you
think “Thank God the weekend is coming up.”,
then realize that it’s only Monday.
It’s a bit depressing when your phone
contact list is filled with ologists and you’re
older than most of their fathers. And I don’t
know how I got to the point of yelling at people
in their fifties to get off my lawn. But
every so often you find something to be grateful
for. This morning I was thrilled to discover a
brown hair on the shower floor. Then my
neighbor told me that he gave his dog a bath last
night. So I toweled off, apologized and went home.
Easy come, easy go.
I guess the moral is, don’t talk about your
age, don’t even think about your age. Ignore
it. “Whatever’s happening in my
arteries, stays in my arteries”.
THE END (I
HOPE NOT)
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