I have been called a grouch, a shit, a bore, a brat, a pain, and once, Leslie Delilah the hermaphroditic contortionist. I remember all the grouchy old men from the neighborhood. I was a paper delivery boy and as such I was authorized access to any yard, house or apartment of which I was owed copperage. I visited grouches every month. I never thought much about these mostly men who seemed irritated at the universe. They would still pay the bill and give me a tip. I would smile and say thank you above their mumbles.
Today I am one of those men. Everything orderly seems out of sorts. There is very little testosterone running throughout my veins and arteries. So many toe nails hurt along with the crick in my neck. The pain in my shoulder is only slightly less annoying than the pain in my ass. I think I have good vision only to find out that catching a fly is now impossible. I can forgo the shoulder joint pain to join in the hunt but I miss the lazy mosquito because I cannot focus accurately. Sampson was spared the scourge of old age blindness. In a few years he would not have even noticed the bad hair day thing except for the failing lead in his pencil. The once smooth driveway tiles are now like rocky crags as I drag my dead left leg over. The kitchen cabinet doors that just a few years ago were obviously supposed to be closed and were positioned much higher are now open and gouging me in my low slung cranium.
I cannot even understand my own mumbling. People ask me to repeat my statement because they could not hear it clearly. I simply respond "Life is a continuum and that utterance has past, I have no earthly idea what I said, thank your for asking though. If anyone remembers, e-mail me and I will enjoy it as much as you have seemed to." My assistant whispers that e-mail is so twentieth century and this is NASA, "we text" now. I mumble, "WE do not do anything except kill trees".
Since I fully understand the old grouch thing, any time I see an old person smiling I assume he is having a heart episode because it is all most over or he is on drugs. God's grace must be sufficient because everyone over fifty years old should be a grouchy, stumbling mess. At fifty, a man has been cheated on, lied to, stabbed in the back, had the rug pulled out from under him at least twice, had smoke blown up his tail pipe, scared limp, and probably recently had a cold steel medical device shoved up somewhere that is not supposed to have things shoved up and now we all get to watch a video to heighten the embarrassment.
The most grouch enriching situation involves noise. I am sure I say six or seven times a day, "What the hell is that noise?" Not only can I not identify the vibration (all noise is vibration), I cannot understand where it is coming from or why the disturbance in force is driving a bleeding hole in my head. Is it just a new sound or am I losing my mind. Losing my mind is a short, slippery romp I know and soon will be welcome. You will not have this grouchy old man whom you now laugh with to laugh at any more. You can laugh at my gravestone that may say "Dad, I kept my mouth shut and I suffocated."
Today I am one of those men. Everything orderly seems out of sorts. There is very little testosterone running throughout my veins and arteries. So many toe nails hurt along with the crick in my neck. The pain in my shoulder is only slightly less annoying than the pain in my ass. I think I have good vision only to find out that catching a fly is now impossible. I can forgo the shoulder joint pain to join in the hunt but I miss the lazy mosquito because I cannot focus accurately. Sampson was spared the scourge of old age blindness. In a few years he would not have even noticed the bad hair day thing except for the failing lead in his pencil. The once smooth driveway tiles are now like rocky crags as I drag my dead left leg over. The kitchen cabinet doors that just a few years ago were obviously supposed to be closed and were positioned much higher are now open and gouging me in my low slung cranium.
I cannot even understand my own mumbling. People ask me to repeat my statement because they could not hear it clearly. I simply respond "Life is a continuum and that utterance has past, I have no earthly idea what I said, thank your for asking though. If anyone remembers, e-mail me and I will enjoy it as much as you have seemed to." My assistant whispers that e-mail is so twentieth century and this is NASA, "we text" now. I mumble, "WE do not do anything except kill trees".
Since I fully understand the old grouch thing, any time I see an old person smiling I assume he is having a heart episode because it is all most over or he is on drugs. God's grace must be sufficient because everyone over fifty years old should be a grouchy, stumbling mess. At fifty, a man has been cheated on, lied to, stabbed in the back, had the rug pulled out from under him at least twice, had smoke blown up his tail pipe, scared limp, and probably recently had a cold steel medical device shoved up somewhere that is not supposed to have things shoved up and now we all get to watch a video to heighten the embarrassment.
The most grouch enriching situation involves noise. I am sure I say six or seven times a day, "What the hell is that noise?" Not only can I not identify the vibration (all noise is vibration), I cannot understand where it is coming from or why the disturbance in force is driving a bleeding hole in my head. Is it just a new sound or am I losing my mind. Losing my mind is a short, slippery romp I know and soon will be welcome. You will not have this grouchy old man whom you now laugh with to laugh at any more. You can laugh at my gravestone that may say "Dad, I kept my mouth shut and I suffocated."
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