Age Definitely Has It's Advantages!

When approaching one’s dotage, as I am, one soon discovers there’s a whole bunch of benefits that come with age other than the obvious one (staying on this side of the dirt). Nearly every day I manage to create some sort of untenable situation for myself that I could never have fluffed off when I was younger. These days when my off-the-wall behavior gets me in trouble I either immediately attribute my actions to advancing age myself or try to hang loose long enough to see if someone else will do it for me. That tactic is about a 50-50 maneuver for both sides.

Another part of this old age thingy, which I’m enjoying immensely, is the fact that I no longer view life as seriously as I once did. In fact, I don’t view it as very serious at all. Age promulgates the attitude that things are as they are. If it bothers you; change it if you can. If you can’t change it; forget it. I’ve found that, too, about a 50-50 proposition.

This evening was a good example of the way I’m occasionally – not often mind you – but occasionally, reminded of my approaching senility. I received an email from a trusted friend and to it he had attached an opinion by a Dallas, constitutional lawyer on the healthcare bill. Well, I thought the guy’s opinion was finer than frog fuzz and immediately built a Hub around it. I carefully described where I got the information and yata, yata, yata. When I hit the "publish" button I got an immediate message that the Hub was a duplicate.

Now, I’m getting old but not forgetful so I went through every Hub I’ve ever written and didn’t find a duplication. Eventually, I saw the red message that declared the content of my Hub matched up with other articles on the internet. Wow! When I checked the internet myself I found my information was not just yesterday’s news; it was nearly my age! I felt really stupid for the 30 seconds it took me to delete the errant Hub; get tickled at myself and forget it. Twenty years ago I would have been devastated by my own ignorance and beat myself to death for days!

Of course, in my case, I have a long history of creating strange and unusual situations so practice may be the reason for my "so what" attitude and not age. My adventures in naivete alone could produce volumes of "nobody’s that dumb" literature. When one’s raised in a town of 250 people and everybody knows everyone else, a sheltered upbringing is a given. If you couple that with being raised by a puritan grandmother who would have been happy if I’d believed children were conceived through some process of osmosis – at least until I was 30 -- it’s understandable I was a little slow on the uptake.

I wasn’t, however, backward enough not to want to get out and among ‘em so the ink wasn’t dry on my high school diploma before I’d packed my Avon bath powder and headed for Dallas, Texas. A high school classmate and I rented a small apartment and assured one another we’d reached the pinnacle of sophistication. We both went to work for a large insurance company as file clerks and ate dinner, once a week, at a greasy-spoon diner down the block. Now how great is that?

One thing became immediately apparent. I wasn’t making enough money to live in the style to which I had dreams of becoming accustomed so I played sick one Friday and went on a job interview. I answered an ad that said a tavern was looking for a bar manager. The weekly pay was more than I made in a month so incentive was definitely there.

Looking back, the guy that interviewed me – the owner – probably thought I’d fallen off the back of a slow-moving watermelon truck just by looking at me. I was 5’10" tall and weighed 125 pounds. In the interest of appearing "more mature" and bar appropriate, I wore a black sheath cocktail dress (at 2 o’clock in the afternoon) that, in all probability, made me look like a black soda straw with a head. I also wore spike heel sandals which elevated my height to about 6’2". The manager was about the size of a large watch fob and wouldn’t have been 5’6" tall standing on someone else’s shoulders. I towered over him like a tall, skinny oak.

I had a couple of other things against me in addition to my Morticia-like appearance. I not only didn’t drink; I’d never been in a bar. We sat down at a table and my interviewer began asking the usual questions including my age. I lied like a big dog and was pretty sure I’d aced that one. Then came the big announcement in the form of a question.

"You are aware this is a gay bar, aren’t you?" With all the confidence in the world, I smiled real big, casually laid my arm across the back of my chair, threw out my bony chest and declared, "That’s all right; I like happy people!" After posing the same question to me three times and getting little variation on the answer; the potential employer assured me he’d "be in touch," walked me to the door and the interview was over. I’d never heard the term "gay" in my life before that day. I’ve since imagined what a hit that guy is at cocktail parties when he regales them with my interview story.

As my future obviously wasn’t managing a bar; I continued working at the insurance company. By then, shoes had become my passion and Spring-o-lators were the hottest thing on the market. They were a backless shoe that had an elastic piece in the foot bed that pushed upward on one’s foot and thus kept the shoe on. The toe of the shoe could be a pump like configuration, a sandle, etc. I chose a pair that had a see-through plastic piece that crossed over the foot and one’s toes peeped out. As I had long, narrow, jackrabbit feet the elastic piece really didn’t work all that well for me but I’d have worn those shoes if I’d had to keep them on with barbed wire and bubble gun.

I bought them one afternoon after work and wore them to the office next morning. Now, a bank, with lots of glass, see-through offices, was on the first floor of the building where I worked. Each morning we entered the bank lobby and took the elevator up to our third floor offices. One entered the bank through the first automatic glass door I’d ever seen. My roommate and I approached the door in high good spirits that particular morning.

I was merrily shuffling along in my new shoes and without thinking, approached the glass door at an angle and grabbed the door handle BEFORE stepping on the magic black mat that made it open. Consequently, when my long, skinny body followed my arm - and I did step on the mat - it literally propelled me like a guided missile into the bank lobby. It felt like I remained airborne for at least five minutes before I suddenly dropped flat on my face on the marble floor.

Although I was hurt, I was a lot more embarrassed. My first thought was how to make myself look less of the idiot I’d just proven myself to be. When I struggled to a sitting position I was staring straight at the president of the bank and his secretary in their glass offices. He was prone across his desk and laughing so hard he couldn’t right himself. His secretary was hanging on to the door frame of his office attempting not to fall to her knees as she was laughing until she couldn’t get her breath.

I made it to my feet, unassisted because everybody was still rolling with laughter, and that’s when I discovered I was barefoot. My eyes fell on the glass door and on the outside, neatly side-by-side, as though someone had carefully placed them there on the magic door mat, were my Spring-o-lators. The door had yanked me out of my shoes when it threw me into the lobby. The walk to the glass door seemed ten miles away but I put my chin in the air and with my long feet flapping on the floor went outside, got my shoes and caught the elevator.

In view of my "trouble looking for a place to happen" history; it’s easy to see how some of my personality quirks could be attributable to age, practice or some combination of both! No matter; at this point in time I find them totally non-traumatic and laughable. I truly believe a lot of the physically related screw ups in my younger days were due to being so tall and skinny. I don’t have to concern myself with that anymore as it seems I’m now growing down instead of up – about two inches worth.

My son is quick to point out that people shrink as they age and that’s normal – which is the only time in his life he’s put me and the word "normal" in the same sentence. It’s also another point on the side of others making excuses for me because of my age.

This aging business really seems to get better every day. It's just a damn shame it's so tenuous!