On Turning Sixty
Although it’s brought me that much closer to transforming into
worm food, I’ve found that turning sixty is not without its
compensations. While it’s true, for example, that my member
isn’t getting a proper supply of blood anymoreand that I can no
longer write my name in the sand and must settle for my
initialsI can still have lots of fun with it. Thanks to a
prostate gland the Museum of Humongous Prostate Glands has
already put in a bid for when I buy the farm, my urine stream
now bifurcates at the exit point. This means that I can pee into
the toilet and the adjacent bathtub at the same timewhich is a
kick. My urologist says that while he can make no promises,
there’s a good chance that in the not too distant future I’ll be
capable of TRIfurcating. This will enable me to pee in the
toilet, the bathtub AND the laundry basket simultaneously.
I can’t wait.
And by making it possible to legitimately ignore questions that
have always annoyed the hell out of me (”When are you getting a
job?” is a persistent one that’s never failed to spill some
really nasty chemicals in my brain), my newly developed hearing
loss has a terrific upside as well. Not, to be sure, that its
downside isn’t just as major. I mean, how many invitations to
lunch have I blown? How many people have said, “Let me buy you
lunch,” and I’ve said in reply, “But we still don’t have Bin
Laden”? (As thorny as this problem is, I’ve managed to ease it
somewhat by saying, maybe a dozen times a day to people with
whom I come into contact, “Thanks, that’s great.” Though
probably 500 of them have looked at me in a very askance kind of
wayand one, I’m not sure why exactly, punched me in the
stomachI’ve gotten six lunches doing this that I would
otherwise have missed out on. Not to mention a free ticket to a
Robert Goulet concert!)
But if the benefits and drawbacks of my hearing impairment are
more or less equal, the short-term memory loss that’s
accompanied my sexagenarianism has a plus side that actually
outweighs its minus side. I’m speaking, of course, of the
guarantee it can afford me that a movie I’m going to will be a
good one. I’ll notice, for instance, an ad for a movie and tell
a friend about it. The friend will advise me that I saw the
movie just a week ago. I’ll ask him if I liked it and if he
says, “Yeah, you couldn’t stop talking about it,” I’ll think,
hey, how often does a movie come with THAT kind of
recommendation and I’ll go immediately to see it. I’m told that
I’ve seen “Pearl Harbor” eight times now.
(I might add here that my short-term memory loss in no way
affects my ability to remember the last time I had sex.)
But of the many compensatory rewards that turning sixty
provides, there’s one that I value most of all. Although I can
still croak at a RELATIVELY early age, I’ll be spared the
embarrassment of expiring at a TRAGICALLY early age.
