This old spouse

As I make the transition from being young and stupid to being a little bit older and still pretty stupid, I’m noticing that people my age are constantly making comments about being old. I hear this all the time: “We stayed in on Saturday night. We’re so old now.”

Staying in on a Saturday night does not make you old. Passing Beano around the table after dinner does. If you are careful not to treat your digestive activities as a matter of public discourse, you can actually slow the aging process. If you never even mention digestion, you will age like a love child of Dick Clark and Bilbo Baggins.

And what’s so bad about getting old, anyway? I’m pretty proud of the fact that I haven’t gotten myself naturally selected yet. Sure, I’m still young, but nature’s swung and missed a few times already. So anytime you feel like complaining about your age, you just remember -- this isn’t gym class. Getting picked last is a good thing.

Last weekend, I accompanied my wife Kara to New York City so that she could ditch me and hang out with her girlfriends for a bachelorette party. Our separation for the evening was a mutually agreed-upon arrangement, as husbands aren’t exactly welcome at a bachelorette party, and I would probably feel more at-ease attending the Donner Party dipped in steak sauce anyway.

A buddy of mine met up with me in the city, and while we were standing in line outside of a comedy club, an old man came outside to smoke a cigarette, which is a very effective way of getting nature’s attention.

As he lit up, he coughed a bit. “Getting old is hell,” he said to me.

If I had any ability to think on my feet, I would have given the only appropriate reply, which is: “but it sure beats the alternative.”

But I don’t know how to think on my feet. I know how to bludgeon small talk. So I said, “Yeah, I’m finding that out for myself.”

That’s how much hearing twenty-somethings complaining about being old has messed up my mind -- I’ll complain about my age to somebody three times older than me. I’m sure the eighty-year-old man appreciated all the trials and tribulations I’ve had to go through to get to the grizzled old age of twenty-seven. I bet when he’s having his colonoscopy tomorrow, he’ll be thinking of me, and hoping that I’m adjusting well to having a bald spot.

It’s easy to talk about appreciating old age when I haven’t yet had to endure any of its indignities, except that now I can give myself a hangover just by sniffing Nyquil. I’m not expecting old age to always be a blast; I just think it’s pretty out-of-whack when people dread their birthdays. Old people have a proven record of managing not to get themselves killed, and I think that’s something to be proud of.

And when I finally do get to be old, I don’t want to be wasting my time trying to look like I do now. I already look like I do now, and it’s not anything to get too excited about.

So I might as well look forward to getting old. Why not? Life is a process of constant learning, and that’s a cool thing. It also means that every time you see me, I’m as dumb as I’ll ever be. What exactly that means, I have no idea. I’ll be smarter when I’m older, so check back then.