2 posts tagged “life”
What is it with me and bananas? I buy them all the time because I like them, but without fail at least one banana out of every bunch ends up sitting on the kitchen counter until it slowly begins to resemble a mummy’s dick. Only then do I find it necessary to surreptitiously usher the neglected blackened mass into the trash. Trying to be clever about it, I’ve even taken to buying one or two fewer bananas off a bigger bunch only to realize days later that I’ve lost my intended focus once again and some poor banana has been allowed to mutate into an island paradise for fruit flies.
I’ve begun to wonder how much of Latin America’s banana crop ends up in the landfill each year thanks to obsessive-compulsive banana Bozos like me. That I keep buying them, only to casually witness one or two decay, serves as a nagging testament to my general dimness, as if I fucking need one more tangible confirmation of my dizzyingly cyclical ineptitude. I can’t seem to avoid viewing this kind of habitual behavior, however human, as being the small, unwavering acts of a knuckle head. No matter how I might try to hit the heights it seems I am ultimately best at leaving my fly undone or suavely trailing toilet paper from my heel.
A classic example of this tendency occurred during the latter Cretaceous Period when I was around twelve years old. I took it upon myself one afternoon to throw a dart up into the air thinking it might look cool, kind of like a rocket in flight. Alas, as I attempted to run away from the falling projectile it found a way to make a perfect bulls-eye landing on the top of my head.
I can still vividly recall the gleeful faces of my childhood buddies as they fell about, howling with delight at the sight of me dancing around in pain and horror with a bright red dart sticking out the top of my skull.
Akin to falling darts and my body farm for bananas, I also find that any kind of house cleanup ends up casting me into a depression. Yeah, the initial orderliness of it is gratifying but like the glass being half empty I’m far more conscious of my home’s inevitable backslide into finger smears, full litter boxes, and floor crumbs.
I could excuse my generally negative self-view as being a mid-life
crisis except for the fact that I’ve felt this way about my life since I was
the ripe old age of three. That George Bush exists, that the roof gutters need
clearing, that I dutifully promise to record T.V. shows for my wife only to forget
to turn on the VCR for the thirty-eighth friggin' time in a row does nothing to inspire
me to adopt a more cheery world view.
Oh fuck! I forgot the laundry!
Looking in the mirror nowadays, I find it hard to believe that once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a fairly good looking guy; bright, fit, and energetic. Well, judging by my current reflection, that suave and debonair young fellow has faded the fuck away only to be replaced by some unrecognizable gray haired git.
Not even a lifetime of being athletic or my purposely giving up the quest for a gold medal in the Substance Abuse Olympics has slowed my steady, sliding, pratfall into middle age. Understand folks, I'm still young enough that I can fathom the passage of time with some hair raising clarity, so it is gut wrenchingly obvious to me how soon I will truly be an old, Pampers wearing, apple sauce gumming, mouth breather.
I know for a fact that I have already mastered one skill of the aged… I snore like a yodeling rhinoceros. I’ve been told that I can faithfully recreate the sound of a vat full of chocolate pudding being stirred with a chainsaw. My decibel shattering inhalations scare the shit out of the cat and have cruelly transformed my poor loving wife into a bleary-eyed expert on late, late, night TV.
To my humiliation and horror I now find that I’m no longer able to keep myself from farting out loud and often, usually in public places like, a small elevator, on jury duty, or bending down to grab a package of double fudge cookies in the supermarket.
I also find that I can’t remember names and faces as well as I use to. Yesterday I saw a photo of Van Morrison and said, “Holy shit has Johnny Depp let himself go!” I looked down at my feet this past weekend and realized that I was wearing white socks with dark dress shoes! Teddy on a bender, that’s just friggin’ tragic!
Being that I am destined to be a codger in a couple of minutes I’ve also taken to seeing the majority of teenagers not as a generation of hopeful young people in the process of growing up but simply as a total bunch of A-holes! I keep telling myself that this may not count as being age related grumpiness because, to tell you the truth, I have always thought that the vast percentage of all people are complete assholes anyway.
There are bound to be some earnest, well intentioned souls who might say, "But what about all the great experiences you've had in life, you whiner; and what about the wisdom that can only be bestowed upon you as you grow older?" Fuck that! That's like asking, "Why aren't you happy and grateful that the bright red Cadillac you've spent your life customizing and polishing is gonna crash and burn in that deep ass ditch up ahead?"
My stepfather who is now 97 years old once told me that whoever the bastard was who coined the phrase; “The Golden Years” must have been talking about the color of the stains that inexplicably start to appear in the crotch of your trousers. He also suggested, (in his words), that, "the phrase peddling son of a bitch should be hunted down so that he can be beaten to death, repeatedly."
Well Golly! I wonder what other blighting indignities will I get to enjoy, all
just a too few minutes onward and up around the bend? Bless him! My step
dad’s so right. Getting old really sucks.
