Have you ever looked in the mirror and said to yourself audibly, how did I get here? It wasn't so long I examined that horizontal line that runs across my forehead, and I am fairly sure at this point it is deep enough to plant peanuts in. I have no doubt that comes to me curtesy (and in equal parts) from my high school English teacher, my former wife, and the IRS. When a man is eighteen, he has already snuck a peak at his genetic playing cards and figures, well this is my face I guess I will shave it. If a man is in his twenties and the top of his head looks like a cue ball, there isn't much he can do about that. But aging in our fifties is a whole other thing entirely. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I swear I hear Toby Keith's song "I'm not as good as I once was" playing in the background like that canned music they pipe into the dentist's office. Remember when those only included tunes like instrumental versions of Elton John and Billy Joel songs. These days, in that vein you might even hear an Ozzy song. My number one question in all of that is why would someone spend better than twenty years trying to form a successful band and then chose to name it Skid Row? What exactly is the thought process behind that? On top of that people who are now in their 30's tend to speak off-handedly about the 80's like my generation did about the 50's. Everything eventually makes it to the bottom of the valley like a dung beetle rolling a giant turd.
Aging is a phenomenon that we all must take part in, and there is no cure. Women especially hate it, fight against it, and plan its demise. But I will remind you that aging is undefeated, it's like a bazillion and 0. While it seems, women are super obsessed with the topic men generally couldn't care less. Women's hatred for it truly borders on obsession. Even my wife let's it dominate most of her thoughts and conversations and she is one of the sane ones. Unless a man is a Hollywood jet setter, how often do you hear him getting something nipped and tucked like the seat in an old Cadillac? I wish I had a dollar every time I saw one of those trashy check-outs stand magazines that features a woman that looks as if she is trying to push her face through an overinflated balloon. Have you ever seen a woman that has had so much plastic surgery done on her eyes that she appears to be permanently alert?
Depending on your own point of view, it may be sad that by the time most men have reached their seventies their faces will look like beat up old saddle bag. We not only fully expect it, but we are also okay with it, and we usually embrace it. When asked about this phenomenon by my wife I usually tell her something like "well honey, men are complicated creatures." Which is most certainly a lie and just code for we don't care. Trust me when I tell you that it's a topic, we tire of easily. You will never hear a man running a bead of 7018 weld and follow it up with the phrase "damn, I broke a nail!"
In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, "If the human body were a car, we would never buy one because there is just too much darn maintenance." Clipping this, trimming that, and the washing never ends. By today's standards a man could theoretically let his armpits go a couple of days, but I don't advise it unless he has on office job. If a stiff wind happens to catch the underside of the wife beater and it fills the room with the aroma of French onion soup it may be time to break out the Irish Spring and a stick of deodorant. Take it from a guy who has been single a few times in my life the undercarriage needs bi-daily attention. And if your teeth have not seen the working end of a toothbrush since the Carter administration do us all a favor and stay down wind. A few days ago, I was offered some bruschetta for lunch which we all know is full to the brim with garlic, but I was due in the dentist chair that afternoon, so I turned it down flat. I consider that a professional curtesy like changing your boxers before your prostrate exam.
Just know this, setting on that white butcher paper in the doctor's office is the equivalent to putting your F-150 up on the rack, once they get it up there, they will find something wrong with it! At that point you better just make sure your tie rod ends are not shot, otherwise your rear end will start to shimmy, and your tires will eventually go bald. Have you ever considered the parameters of what's involved in a prostrate exam? Leaning over that cold medical table with doctor jelly fingers fist so far up your keister he could touch his index finger to your #23 molar is no picnic. But if you take those same circumstances out of the doctor's office and put them in a hotel room it goes from being an examination to being a felony, at least it is in Oklahoma. I have said it many times before and I stand by it, life is all about perception.
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