Someone said “the unexamined life is not worth living” but if we scrutinized our own we’d mostly realize the whole existence thing was hardly worth the bother.
Examine this: Why does it take so long to grow up?
It took a hundred years to get to be 16 and when I got there I had pimples. It took another decade or two to reach my 20’s, which produced a long stretch of subsequent amnesia, regrets and apologies because I spent those years as a brain-dead hippie. Was there something called Zig Zags?.
It took another five years to get to 40, which didn’t seem much different than 30, and five months later I turned 60. The next day I woke up 70 years old. Amid the scattered calendar pages was a so-called lifetime of family obligations and a career to flounder through, until I at last reached an age I could look back and examine it all, but realized it had hardly been worth the bother. Or did I already say that?
Meanwhile I’m here in the land of the broken whining elderly, wondering why nobody told us what this getting old stuff would be like. I had no idea. Well, I had a few, but they were always wrong where it mattered most.
My dumbutt boomer generation thought becoming a senior citizen meant you went to Florida, played shuffleboard, drove around in a golf cart and ate dinner at 5:30 with a coupon for half-off.
Like hell it is.
Being old is to wake up in another land, a world of crappy music, dangerous politicians and baseball replaced by soccer. Getting old is long stretches of boredom interspersed by flashes of monotony and big naps.
Old is wishing you’d followed through on your promise to live fast, die young and have a good looking corpse. A bit of the ol’ self-examining puts you at 0 for 3 in those categories, and that’s with a generous official scorer.
I’ve managed few points in my lifetime, the occasional victories being several good dogs, a wife I don’t deserve, any time some of my kids aren’t in prison, and a cool ’60 Thunderbird. Go ahead: examine my debris-riddled empire all you want.
Then someone chirps “But what about the joys of getting older?”
I like that. “Joys.” As if there might be more than one. Like a Bucket List of future happy accomplishments.
You know: climb mountains, learn French, hike the South Pole, read Ulysses and paint watercolors. How about I stab my eyes out and learn Braille? Rob banks and see what prison life has to offer?
Pleasures are in short supply among the frail and elderly and I think a quick, easy, inexpensive way to bring a little fun and enjoyment into our lives is for us all to start smoking. Why not Marlboros as a hobby? Pipes, cigars, chewing and vaping all offer entertainment options we can enjoy alone or in groups.
I don’t know of anyone who has ever smoked cigarettes who doesn’t long to do it some more, except for the addiction part, the icky cancer stuff and the general social shaming of filthy smokers. That won’t be us.
We’re too old to get dependent on tobacco, and if we die at least we’ll have saved the world from having to buy us loads of expensive medical procedures as we get even older than we are now, which strains belief.
But I’m just warming up.
Why not crack cocaine? You say it’s bad for our health, and that our hair and teeth will fall out? Let those thoughts percolate a moment, then check a mirror.
And as long as we’re up and about, scoring crack in an alley near the train tracks, let’s get a bag of fentanyl. Bad for your health, etc? See previous paragraph on long-term health / cost benefits to our children and all taxpayers.
“B-b-but it’s illegal to do drugs and stuff,” someone is sure to point out, but how could a bunch of geriatric old gaffers possibly fall under the radar of the county’s Major Crimes Task Force? They’ll suspect our family dogs are using heroin, opium and methamphetamine long before they think of targeting us.
And really now, could DA Dave Eyster, he of the walnut-sized heart and flinty disposition, bring himself to prosecute or send to prison such a sad gang of hopeless old losers? Once convicted we’d probably all die before transportation to San Quentin could even be arranged.
Now pass the pipe, assuming that’s how we’re supposed to freebase our crack and fentanyl. Might be a snort, or syringes and spoons.
Anyhoo, it seems like our future days, and even weeks if we’re lucky and don’t OD first, will be a lot more fun than we would have thought likely a few minutes or paragraphs ago.
Next Week: Tequila Days, Whiskey Nights, Breakfast Beers. OR: How much abuse can 75-year old livers absorb?
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