Menage' et CLAUS

 Yeah I admit it, as I have gotten older I have tried to embrace hip modern culture. These days, more often than not, I use extension cord belts to cinch up my gut instead of ol' fashioned suspenders, stack actual used Campbells soup cans on my mantle instead of those ugly Warhol lithos, and the pillowcases usually match the color of the sheets on my king-sized inflatable cot. 

Like every Christmastime, my wife digs around in the attic to find some appropriate holiday decor to grace our space. If I'm lucky she will uncover at least one stale candy cane that has survived being entombed in a green or red storage container along with whatever gifts the mice have left us throughout the year. The goal is to release a herd of Rudolph stuffed animals, Frosty embroidered wash cloths, and my personal favorite - a GIANT parachute nylon, stuffed Santa pillow. The wife finds great pleasure in perching this monster softy Santa in the middle of our bed as sort of a bundling board blockade tribute to the season. 

Big deal - the guy is very jolly and adds some extra cheer to our meager bed dressings since we wash with Tide, but I'm not sure I am hip enough to have another fat dude with a flacid red hat and tighty tights in bed with my wife too! After all, it has taken me almost two score years to score 1 kid with my wife so it is clear my love life does not need any more distractions. Further, I am not sure how many more crumb-generators our mattress can handle since myself and the bed bugs have pretty healthy appetites and ugly full bibs.

So no matter how hip n' cool I long to be I guess by the 1st of the new year, I need to kick that seasonal Serta-Santa back up to his attic sleigh-bed. I certainly don't need a stupid 3rd wheel pillow-pal in my life especially when his head is even softer than mine. Hey, I'm no dummy - there is NO way I want my wife getting too used to having more than one gray-beard balding dome leaving dimpled dents in our memory foam. Now my only concern is how am I going to block all that midnight geezer-snoring ... obviously emanating from the ATTIC. 

Happy New Year!

The LAST FACT OF LIFE

My least two favorite words when paired together are 'The' and 'End'. Though the article 'the' has been a very useful word to write with over the years, usually the 'Ends' of most things (especially sausage) are typically disgusting or disappointing in some pointy or puckered way. The only exception to that rule of course is an end cut of a prime rib - since nothing makes my day, like a  

burnt hunk of leather to wave in the face of a snobby  'pink meat' gourmet.

While it's true I never want great culture, innovation, and tasteful troughs of food n' libation to quit, there are a select few moronic movies, noisy music, and gooey baby's loose ends to tie up that I won't miss a bit. Though I like heavy bookENDS when tantrum-tossed in twos, they confound me as literally literary-prop duos; since in vernacular 'book-BEGINS' is not known or claimed, it's frustrating only the back-half of book-blockers, are properly named.

When it comes to the end of the road I have never understood the inaccurate expression 'Death is a part of Life'. So tell me, what breathless death and dumb linguist decided 'dying' deserves a place at the head table in a recipe for an idiotic idiom supposedly about living? Oh sure death's incessant knock at the bathroom door when you're not quite 'finished' might be scary, but while you still have a few matches to burn, simply ignore the intrusion and go about your business. Everyone's end-game journey is just the same with an ultimate and inevitable dead end to wipe the slate clean n' free of worry, since dead means just that - DEAD, save for an occasional pasty-faced goth-zombie or leftover weakling smoke detector battery.

The 'finality' of a lot of things in life might not seem so obvious if only my stupid microwave would quit constantly taunting me with its incessant beeping and bean-green screen flashing 'END' over n' over when done popping corn or giving last rights to my two-day cold coffee sludge. I'm starting to think maybe I too should start listening to 'Mikey' more and embrace this last fat FACT of life, by finding some kind of signal to display when I flash my own end sometime.  Don't worry I'll still be considerate of my wife and nosy neighbors because I'll only use that ear-piercing beeping for when I back down the driveway - or else I'll never hear the END of it!

A DOG'S LIFE

I generally am not an envious creature since despite outward appearances, most people often have more complex and hidden weighty baggage than even I am able to stuff into my tiny overhead bin. Anyway my life has been reasonably charmed with good calories, chances, and a Teflon-tempered family willing to still walk me even when I gurgle, grouse and grumble.  So it’s sensible to just stick with my own known quantity of crazy and slog through a routine trying not to inadvertently break other people’s stuff or publicly scratch too vigorously, except when buying lottery tickets.

I will admit though I do gaze upon the neighbor’s ol’ yellow dog and at times admire his simple, unpretentious and seemingly perfect existence. Even with all of the positive support surrounding me I still have to constantly consider consequences and what people may think if I make odd choices or do unusual things. That’s not the case for that geezer-mutt next door since he doesn't care about shallow hidden whispers from others on the color of his coat, his mental acumen, health, and of course the enduring ripeness of his scent.

It would be great to just dash out to the border of the front yard, mindful of the underground shock-wire of course, and gleefully start yelling at door to door salespeople and politicians who dare approach? Who wouldn’t love the freedom when they get the urge to purge while on a walk, to just just stop, drop, and wrangle a rope or two to green up a neighbor’s lawn and lubricate their mower’s wheels. Life would be a lot easier if I could chew on furniture to brush my teeth, did not have to wash or even wear clothes, and got to lap up my coffee right from the floor rather than messing with putting it in a mug first.

Since I reckon I could get through puberty by the age of 2 and on to senior discounts by 3^rd grade, even with the whole 7 to 1 aging thing, clearly a dog’s life is looking pretty attractive to me right now. Despite that few dogs work for the government, some do have a bad reputation for harassing postal workers, which I find unbelievable since I’m sure they ALL must be in the same union. Given the similarity of great lifetime benefits, low and slow work expectations moving papers from street to stoop, and walking around unshaven and hairy - how else could you explain it?

Color Me Crusty

Maybe it has always been this way but am I the only one who sees the world through rose and green colored 3D glasses around the last quarter of the year? The truth is that as of late even orange and black Halloween is also getting flocked and being horned in on by rutting Rudolph and his deer friends. Thank goodness Valentine’s red letter day and the white, red n’ Independence blue have stayed true and somehow have avoided being elf-hijacked too.

Yes, apparently now Christmas is not just one day of the year but in fact extends its over-ripe aroma to all of Fall and hangs around a little too long like that last plate of dark-meat leftovers from Thanksgiving. No just because I set a few mousetraps in the attic around the gold garland and stored ornamental rainbow balls doesn’t mean I’m the pied piper of gripey Grinches at all. But honestly, what other holiday totally consumes white light to make life costlier, less productive and an even deeper black hole than it already is?

I don’t see Chanukah getting in my way too much, but  then again even if I were Jewish the wife would never allow a cold gassy giant like me to bounce around next to a bunch of lit candles in a tattered flannel t-shirt. Ol’ Cinco de Mayo and Groundhog’s day don’t ordinarily tax too much of my tiny brain twists either, though inexplicably now I am hungry for five pork sandwiches. The outlier eggy Easter tries to rudely intrude Spring with its funny bunnies, fuzzy ducks, and PEEPing treats too. But in the end with only a month of brown choco hype n’ hubbub to last, even a Winter wonderland whiner like me can frown, bear it, and stand fast.  

Actually I think most of my crusty Christmas recriminations have more to do with my personal geezer leanings rather than society’s oblivious overreach toward an overbearing holiday marketing niche. After all even this Scrooge still gets sucked up by Santa’s jolly jingle and rebuff of we - the far less jovial. It’s just when your hair and skin begins to turn pasty-white like Frosty’s filling, elderly life turns exceedingly telling. Especially so when you’re constantly reminded for months on end that you now need those colorful candy canes for walking rather than to eat as oh so sweet treats!

Dust Bunny Blame

Due to my persistent patter that I am disheveled and a bit of a dust devil when it comes to cleanliness is a tad misleading. It is not really ME that makes most of the messes around this ape cage, it is those dumb bunnies who hide under the toe kicks in the kitchen and waft across the floor at the slightest sneeze of a breeze. I don’t care how much I sweep or suck the buggers up with a bigger vac duct, they always seem to find a way to multiply and fly in the face of my hopes for a spic n’ span  place.

Hey I know I rarely smell of bleach but that doesn’t mean I am a fan of competing for floor space with fuzzy baseball-sized amalgams of intertwined dust and dirt. More than once I’ve suffered a squirt of adrenaline as one of those darting wind-driven faux-rodents streaks up from behind to fondle my meaty beat feet. Though I can think of several things more unpleasant caught aloft surfing on a warm-winded vortex, who wants the comet tail from some linty lapin always trying to sneakily squeeze that out of me.

What worries me is given the degree of follicle fleece flying freely at floor-level, logic would have it that the dust stuff is breeding down there somewhere too. That takes the suspicious spotlight off of the attic mite-y mice of course since they typically only come downstairs to watch Tom and Jerry cartoons while ironing their capes. I also don’t believe my cave-feet are to blame since I’ve turned to Rogaine and that means the silky long locks of my ankle-manes have never looked fuller and more alive.

So though I am at a loss as to the creation of this excess loess, my wife’s judgmental and furtive glances towards my thinning ‘Bowl-Magnon’ cranium have not gone un-noticed. Oh sure my lice have a little less to work with and mowing the Mohawk takes half the time now, but surely one hairless rat alone cannot be at the root of this dusty bunny foot ball invasion? Too bad we don’t have a few domestic pets around since I’m looking for something to blame and take a broom to other than myself; because it’s times like these that I could sure use a little MORE ‘hare of the dog’!

Transformer

Whenever the belt around my neck starts to get loose, I make it a practice to wander into a people-feed store and see what’s on the menu. Unlike most geezers in training, I don’t mind shopping for chow since what better way to get exercise while I stock up on nutritional staples that the wife typically avoids like cookies, candy, and waxy wheels of cheese. Anyway my doughy bone-bag bulk always benefits from a stroll through the zoo and a chance to observe slow-roll meandering oldsters in their natural habitat. 

With this year’s change of seasons though, suddenly society’s younger guns all seem to be treating me TOO a bit differently now. A furtive glare here or an innocent side-step there; yes I notice the subtle impatience and frequent over-aggressive cart incursions as I expertly ponder fiber values between the lowly pinto or more costly black bean. I check myself for oozing wounds, leprosy, or some other stinky societal woe that would deserve such disgust, but upon reflection (off my head) I appear inert and unchanged - just as I’ve always been. 

Oh sure I now prefer the smell of Mentholatum over Old Spice, but what’s it prove - that I enjoy soothing hot water bottles and old time mystery radio shows over reality TV. (coincidentally YES!) So what if I cinch my pants around my chest and my ashen translucent skin no longer is brawny and tawny like days gone by. What do you care if Velcro is the kibble of choice to feed my plush suede Hush Puppies and those threadbare baggy shirts I wear are NOT to be cool but actually to stay warm.

Though no blockbuster movie will ever be made about it, clerks seem to routinely ring-me up with senior discounts and need not see I.D. as proof of my long-toothed Silverback status. Clearly I am something of a real Transformer now – bending, creaking and soon to be leaking new useful, flexible and stickier form of productivity. Yes, long life has been seemingly compressed into seconds as I’ll soon fall completely between the cracks, and cross that invisible line of re-birth from ready steady stud to swayback saddled n’ addled,  quartered-up colt ready for a warm Gorilla GLUE bottle. 

Click Clock

Unlike many graying creatures of the night my head must have mixed in 2 parts bat with the fat under my hat because as I get colder and older I seem to be hearing some sounds BETTER! No the television is still a mush of mumbles and breathless whispers but that is likely due more to my Pringle can amplified budget TV and the sorry state of  modern entertainment programming. Surprisingly now, high pitched clicks are becoming louder and yes, I drool even more uncontrollably at the sound of coins clacking together - which makes for some uncomfortable stares in Taco Bell’s all-tile echorest-room.

I’m not sure what’s changed but it seems now that all of the analog clocks in my house are screaming for their civil rights and ‘just want to be heard’.  Is this some kind of plot from the fancy new clock corporations to drive geezers to the brink and switch to their dinky blinky digital displays? If that’s the case, I’m determined to stand firm with my big noisy clocks, one finger in my ear and the other in a crass digital display of its own.

At Halloween I seem to hear perfectly fine, but oddly any other time of the year I have become almost completely deaf when anything else pounds on the drawbridge door asking for handouts. My wife handles my selective hearing by prefacing her requests with time-tested tricks to garner rapid attention. Drawing me in with comforting utterances beginning with ‘Ding Dong’ or ‘Pop Tart’ will get my most positive reaction, but if the wife’s pressed for time and wants me to fold-up and run like wet ink on a newspaper, she just happily snaps a 3-ring binder.

Other than the spouse, the good news is that most external distractions can be simply buried in the yard along with the bones of other telltale hearts and crafts of noisier times gone bye. But sadly when it comes to my OWN creaky joints and snapping flaps, they seem permanently attached to me so what do I do when skulking the stairs on an otherwise silent night. Clearly all I need to do is don’t whine and unwind those clickity clackity clocks and practice STOPPING time!