For those of you who missed it, which would be most of you since I was there and didn’t see you, I thought I would share what I read one snowy, blustery night this week at my first PUB-lish, an event at which local writers offer brief readings (of 7 minutes or less).
First, though, a shout-out to Jesse and Pete for putting the event together, the Boone Saloon for hosting it, the other writers whose works I enjoyed, and all the supporters of us scribblers for braving the weather to be there.
My contribution was actually written a few years ago and is, in fact, a chapter from my book, Are We Having Fun Yet?
Remember, you only have 7 minutes to read it.
. . .
What I want to know is why I’m shorter than I used to be but weigh a whole lot more.
I mean, what’s the deal with that? As kids, we put on the pounds as we grew taller. You fill in here, you fill in there, and pretty soon you have an adult-sized body. Growth is replaced by stability. But then, all of a sudden, your body goes into reverse.
Take your height. Am I the only person who seems to be shrinking? When I shop for a pair of pants now I buy them an inch shorter than the ones I bought 10 years ago. The odd thing is, I have to buy shoes a size bigger than I used to. From what I can tell, my feet are flattening out. I seem to have better balance now, but every now and then I feel the urge to quack.
These conditions are due, naturally, to the effects of gravity, the irresistible force that results in a general settling of the body. All those brain cells, for instance, that I destroyed and otherwise wasted in my youth have now settled down there around the waist area. Almost all my spare weight is stored in this handy wraparound compartment, sort of a money bag of lard conveniently located next to the stomach.
The rest of the body doesn’t seem to take on fat so much as simply sag. Nothing’s quite as tight and trim as it used to be. Women, being better at most things in life than men, as a rule are naturally superior saggers. Something to do with chromosomes, no doubt.
Everything tends to even out, however, because men are stuck with the hair thing. Nature tends to redistribute hair on men’s body, kind of like an efficient hair recycling system – waste not, want not. Have you ever noticed that as hairlines steadily recede, hair starts sprouting in unlikely places?
It’s not something we in polite society talk about, but those of a less refined upbringing no doubt are going around thinking thoughts such as: “Excuse me, sir, but I believe there is a muskrat nesting in your nose.” Or, “Pardon me, sir, but a squirrel seems to be stuck in your ear.”
So why don’t barbers and hairdressers start appealing to the aging Baby Boomer market by offering free hair cuts (hey, they’re just going to trim the sides, since that’s all there is anyway) with any ear or nose hair cut. This is work more delicate than arranging those three six-foot long strands of hair around a shiny noggin in a failing effort to convince the world that your head doesn’t really look like a baboon’s butt. Perhaps we could start a fad: You know, styled ear hair, say, or dyed nose hair. How about braided eyebrows? We’ll show those young punk kids with their rings stuck everywhere a thing or two about fashion sense.
Probably the worst thing about this aging business, however, has to be the eyesight. I’ve been wearing glasses since the fifth grade, so I tried hard to dredge up some sympathy for all those 20-20 types (you know who you are, you’re the ones who called us four-eyes all the way through high school) when they had to buy those ridiculous little half-moon glasses that they perched on the end of their nose whenever they had to read a menu in a restaurant. Now I’m discovering that just because you’re nearsighted doesn’t exclude you from farsightedness, and so soon I’ll be peering at the world through bifocals – as if the world isn’t fuzzy and muddled enough as it is.
And what do we have to look forward to, anyway? Oh, sure, you can try to keep the old body fit and trim, but it’s a losing battle. Things will keep wearing out and breaking down. The warranty on certain parts will expire, and they simply won’t work properly any more.
That’s when we’ll all be sitting around complaining and whining and occasionally bragging about bodily functions – kind of like when we were parents for the first time. Only instead of our brand new babies we’ll be talking about ourselves.
“Yep,” one of us will say, “had a really successful trip to the bathroom this morning. I mean REALLY successful” and the rest of us will be muttering about what a lucky old fart he or she is. Or: “Hey, I ate some real food for breakfast; had me a chocolate donut instead of that gruel I always eat. ‘Course, I’ll be paying for it later, if you know what I mean.” And of course we’ll all know what it means. Bathrooms will be the most important rooms in our lives.
So what’s a body to do?
Actually, when I get to my golden years, I plan on fighting back. For one thing, I plan on taking up all my old vices again. Smoking, drinking, carousing, partying, leaving the toilet seat up … hey, who cares at that point? I say be who you really want to be without worrying about what anyone else at the retirement home thinks.
That’s the ticket. For once in your life, be yourself. Be who you always wanted to be. Act the way you always wanted to act. Even if your body doesn’t always work the way it used to, that doesn’t mean you have to act your age.
In fact, why wait for old age? The trick to life is to act young, feel young, be young. The sooner you start living young the better.
I intend to get on it right after my nap.
