There's No Fart Like An Old Fart
I remember watching 2001 - A Space Odyssey when I was a kid thinking I would never see the year 2001 because if I did I would be 42 years old and no one gets that old. So I spent my time watching Space 1999 instead as that seemed more attainable. 1999 and then 2001 came and went and I'm still here. It seems, though, that every year I get a little older.
I just had a birthday. One of those nasty ones with a zero in it. It was great. We watched TV and then went to bed. To sleep. I remember when I was younger I used to get really stoked over birthdays, especially that very first one with a zero in it. Kids would drop by and we'd play games and stuff and they'd all give me presents and Mom would bake a cake with coins wrapped in wax paper in every slice. One lucky kid got the quarter which was good for a bottle of pop and a bag of chips, and then when you took the pop bottle back for its deposit, 6 whole blackballs. Nowadays when there's a birthday I guess my friends still come over but they're pretty old kids now so instead of games we mostly sit around and drink and talk about stuff that happened when we were younger.
I first started worrying about getting old a few years back when we got a new puppy. He could run to a tree, do his business, and run back all in the space of about 5 seconds. I timed myself; I took longer. He could also lick himself in places I could no longer reach. Of course he's gone to that great farm upstate in the sky whereas I'm still here. That's good I guess.
Somehow the robots all know I'm old. The spam mail and ad popups that used to be about credit cards and trips are now about hearing aids and walkers. Young people know I'm old somehow too - they come to the door when it's snowing asking if I want my driveway shoveled. Sometimes they give me their seat on the bus. It's a mystery how everyone knows about the age thing; I feel just the same as I always have just with a few more aches.
I find the older you get the more people mumble and whisper at you. Not sure why they do that. Even when they're not mumbling and whispering what they say doesn't necessarily make sense. If you repeat back what they just said and ask for clarification they almost invariably get mad and start speaking at you like an American trying to communicate with a foreigner, so it's easier just to nod your head and then start a new topic of conversation.
Now that I'm old on any given day 99% of me is stiff all day long. This is the reverse of when I was younger, when only 1% of me was stiff all day long. And the pains. Each morning I can't wait to get out of bed and discover what new kinds of pain there can be. Luckily I take enough drugs that I can't really take any more drugs, so I can savour my aches and pains to the fullest. And I don't just discover new pains; I have also discovered that if you have to help squeeze it out it's likely to be more than just a fart.
There are a couple of benefits to being old though. When I was younger I had a lot of trouble getting doctors to take me seriously. Now I have trouble making them go away. I think I have bought a lot of boats for a lot of doctors. As I get older and realize that everyone is, in fact, out to get me, I am beginning to see how the doctors are all in cahoots to keep each other wealthy. The stuff that Doctor A makes you breath in for some kind of scan, the stuff that comes in a lead-lined urn that the technicians all cross themselves before touching, undoubtedly leads to a consult with Doctor B in a few years when the spots develop. At least the doctors no longer ask me for semen samples. A semen sample has to be fresh within twenty minutes for whatever arcane purposes they have for it. But I lived thirty minutes away from the hospital at that time. There was a logistical problem. My parents lived within 15 minutes of the hospital. "Hey mom, I know this is going to sound weird but..." is a conversation that never happened. I considered the little park across the street from the hospital. There was a grove of trees behind the teeter-totter that was somewhat private. I thought I could hang out there and conjure up a sample. Maybe in a trench coat in case it rained. In the end I just simply put it off until it became a non-issue so to speak.
And speaking of, sex is much better now too. As a kid, sex was that little voice inside me screaming "Go find a woman or a chicken or something. Anything. Right now." Of course men and women will remember this differently. Back in the day, men were of the opinion that if you had an itch, scratch it. Women were of the opinion that if you had an itch, "Better get that checked out. Might be something nasty. In any event, keep that thing away from me until we get this sorted out." Nowadays sex is the little voice inside me softly saying "Not much on TV. Maybe read a book instead.” I honestly can't remember what the fuss was about but now I have much more time to read.
I guess technology is also getting better. I can't be totally sure my age is a causal factor in the development of technology but there is a great deal of correlation data and it bears looking into. TVs are now 4k. I don't know what that means but I expect they're colour. When I was growing up TVs were black and white, and my father assures me that when he was growing up TVs were sepia. One of my kids, who has never known a world without technology, once asked me if computers were made of wood when I was a kid. Stone, actually, I replied. The wood ones came later and were easier to carry around.
As I age, people around me have started dying. Not just those of whom you would say "He had a good run". People who are supposed to be still having a good run. And they're not dying for dramatic reasons like they occasionally did when I was a kid. Now people are just simply wearing out. Luckily I'm blessed and it will never happen to me.
Anyhow, enough of being maudlin. Time to think of sex. By which I mean TV. Hey - 2001 a Space Odyssey is on. Now that takes me back.