I was blindsided. There I was, minding my own business, enjoying a steamy shower when I realized the water in the tub was rising around my ankles instead of following it's predestined course to the trendy bottled water factory downtown.
Being somewhat handy in the plumbing department, I finished my shower and got my combination tool pouch, beer holster and, in a pinch, truss; and pulled the strainer off the shower drain. I probably should have dressed first.
Rest easy Gomez and Morticia; I found cousin Itt!
Having been divorced for some time, and with no hope of being a stand in for Brad Pitt In his next movie, my off key shower renditions of Louie Prima classics generally fall on deaf ears. The globular hair ball I jack hammered from the drain was mine and mine alone.
Mustering all the intestinal fortitude I possessed, I stood before the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, in all my glory, and realized that I was no longer the mediocre looking, man about town I once was. With one exception that I'll leave to the imagination, what was once just slightly jello-esque and love-handle-ish, has turned into a Jabba The Hut® Halloween costume.
The bathroom is probably the worst place to hang a full length mirror. You are, usually, within arms reach of drain cleaners, sharp implements and the multitude of prescription drugs that further serve as a mocking beacon to the fact that you aren't twenty-one any more. Someone of a lesser stature could easily be overcome by grief and swallow a bottle of pills, (unless arthritis has started to set in and you can't get the child proof caps off the bottles), or any combination of nostrums and salves.
For those of you brave enough to overcome the temptation to drown yourself by repeatedly flushing your head down the porcelain throne, there is a bright side on the horizon.
It's called retirement.
How many times, in desperation, have you lowered your IQ to read the cover stories on every tabloid in line at the supermarket because the line is being held up by one of the AARP® charter members? It's almost comical, (and always predictable), watching while they wait until the cashier gives them their total and has packed all their wares in a bag, before they start digging in their purse for the coupons? Then, after the coupons are deducted from the total, and the seven-cents has been deducted, it's back into the purse again for the check book. Now, with check book in hand, they go back in among the used tissue, ancient hard candies and untold prescription bottles searching for a pen. Pen unearthed, they question the cost of an item that is, without fail, at the very bottom of the bottom bag in the cart. After the price check, and during a conversation about how expensive it's gotten to live these days, they start to fill in the check, double checking the price as well as the spelling of the store's name.
How many times have you tried to slip into a restaurant for a quick dinner before catching an early movie and found that all the seats are taken by "Q-Tips," cashing in on the early bird, two for one specials?
How often have you overslept and, in an attempt to make it to work on time, gotten stuck behind an Oldsmobile®, (with nothing but a pair of liver spotted hands on the steering wheel visible in your line of sight), going twenty miles per hour under the speed limit?
Worst of all, how many times have you gotten up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to mow the lawn and perform your domestic duties so you didn't suffer the guilt trip when you headed off to the golf course where, surprise surprise, you wind up behind a foursome of eighty-somethings , (equipped with those drivers with a head the size of a Yugo®), whose mighty swing manages to slowly roll the ball ten yards while they stop for a blast from their oxygen bottle; and they refuse to let you play through!
Guess what! It's our turn now.
I've been keeping a mental list for what seems an eternity, vowing one day to extract my pound of flesh for every time I was late to work because granny and the girls had to make the three mile drive to Beullah's house for their weekly canasta game in under four hours.
I want retribution for the hours I've spent in supermarket lines, waiting for Gerty the Coupon Queen to sift through her file box of mostly expired coupons; not to mention a rebate for the IQ points I've lost from reading the tabloid headlines while I stood in line, waiting my turn
I'm waiting for my invitation to join AARP® before I put my devilish plan into effect.
The first step in my fiendish plan is a shopping spree. I've heard that the AARP® welcome book has the directions, (in code), to that one and only store, (somewhere in El Segundo), that sells chest high Bermuda shorts, black argyle knee socks and tacky, old man-sandals. The button down Hawaiian dress shirt that completes the look can be had anywhere.
Then, on my way to the RV dealership, I'm going to stop off at one of the surf shops and find myself a Speedo; bright red and skimpy.
Freshen your lipstick ladies, your eye candy has arrived!
Lastly, with my shiny new 60 foot luxury motor home under me, I'm going to pick up scads of those poignant bumper stickers like "We're Spending our Children's Inheritance," or "This Car Stops at all Bingo Parlors."
Then it's off to the supermarket at five-fifteen PM when the majority of the worker bees are getting off work! I'll be dressed to the nines in my chest high Bermuda's , with suspenders, knee high argyles and a snazzy pair of sandals, fondling every melon and tomato, leaving my cart in the middle of the aisle while I peruse and read the box and compare every laxative, balm, ointment and rash cream.
Then I think I'll treat all my like minded friends on my early bird special coupons at a popular restaurant where we'll sit, comparing surgeries and liver spots, enjoying the free coffee refills until long into the dinner rush, keeping the antsy, younger ,waiting diner's tapping their toes, praying for us to leave.
It's our birthright and I'm not planning on missing out on one minute of it.
Appleby's® wait staff, get your pocket mirrors ready to hold under my nose! I'm going to put your free coffee refill policy to the extreme test. I may even catheterize myself, (if some debilitating condition doesn't do it for me before hand), so I don't even have to get up!
Nature has set us on this path toward that long dirt nap, but nowhere is it written that we have to go peacefully. I'm going into my twilight years kicking and screaming.
Now that I've revealed my master plan to drive the youngsters totally insane, at least within my zip code, I also have a list of my "I won't do's'."
Have you ever noticed the elderly gentlemen who look like they have Muppet's® growing out of their ears? Actually, after all the hair going AWOL from your head fully populates your back, it migrates north again. The weaker of the species crawls into your ears and nostrils and dies there.
Not me! Hopefully, by then, they'll have devised a way to rejuvenate that hair and replant it where nature intended it: on my head.
Grooming products are our friends!
I will always wear a tasteful tee-shirt while swimming. Let's face it guys, the only thing less attractive than an old man in a Speedo, are old man boobs. Either get some exercise or put on a shirt. You're scaring away children!
I will not confuse my chest for my waist and start hiking my pants up under my man-boobs. The potential for damage to your nether regions from the impending, (and always visible), frontal wedgy is just too great. I believe most of the men who do this have already cut off the circulation to the area and are numb from the waist down. Who sells these pants anyway? Probably the same "boutique" in El Segundo that sells the snazzy Bermuda shorts.
Lastly, but more importantly, I will enjoy life to the fullest. Sorry kids, but Daddy will be spending your inheritance! They say the one who dies with the most toys, wins. I'm going to at least get honorable mention. I've worked hard all these years to acquire the scads of "stuff". Thanks to a couple of devious divorce attorneys, I've had to start over a couple of times when all my "stuff" was taken away; but I'm planning one hell of a comeback.
So, within the next decade, should you see a gaudy, monstrous RV crawling down a narrow downtown street with traffic piled up for miles behind; wave at the driver. I'll probably be handing out coupons for two for one pancakes and free coffee refills at IHOP ®!
I'm off to SAS ® Shoes for a pair of orthopedic sandals.
See you at the flea market!