You Know You're Getting Old When

I'm at that age where things are starting to fall apart. Doctor Lynn said that my warranty must have expired.

I won't give my age for religious reasons, but let's just say that my pants are up around the navel. That's how you can tell a man's age: The beltline starts in adolescence around your knees and creeps ever upward until the paramedics finally pull the pants over your head and pronounce you dead.

Memory is also on the skids. Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you were there? I took it to the next level...

"Why the hell am I in Target?"

I wanted to ask a clerk, but they're never helpful that way. I shopped for two hours and still don't know if I got what I needed. So it goes.

My grandpa reached the age where you stop caring altogether...

"Grandpa, will you pass the yams? The yams? THE YAMS."

Oh, he heard us just fine; grandpa had simply moved on from passing yams. He also backed into traffic without a peek, figuring that he had lived so long he must be invincible.

I'm not there yet, but my math has gone from a B in trigonometry to this: Save $2.15 on four cans of tuna ... Four goes into ... Something cents per ounce ... Do I really NEED tuna?

Math loss comes from having too much stuff in our heads. By middle age, math is squeezed out by user names, passwords, credit cards, PIN codes, bank accounts, phone, fax, cell, pager, lyrics to songs we don't even like!

Some say a child is born the moment it's conceived, but I beg to differ: Can you imagine tacking nine months on to your age?

When I was growing up, guys wanted to look like Robert Redford. Now we're all trying not to look like Robert Redford. Sure, wrinkles make you look distinguished -- FROM YOUNG PEOPLE.

According to the beauty girl at Macy's, my crow's feet defy ointment and I really shouldn't have smiled so much. My "problem area" is the forehead, where creases are so deep that pug dogs feel sorry for me.

My friends are getting weird about the hairline. One decided to shave his head and grow a goatee ("The Satan Look"); another purchased magic spray-on hair ("The Chia Pet Look"). A third just stands outside the hair salon with his nose against the window.

I don't see the big deal about receding hairlines. What we should really be afraid of is advancing hairlines ("The Chewbacca Look").

But we decaying people have more pressing concerns, a medical situation that worsens by the year. I am talking, of course, about Unplanned Flatulence.

In our youth, UF is confined to the gym, but in time we can't even climb a flight of stairs without becoming a motorboat. I myself ruined a candlelight romance by fizzing in the bathwater. Male fish must have the same problem -- you just can't get away with underwater gas.

Doctor Lynn recommended a change to my sodium, so I took his advice with a grain of salt.

I'll leave you with this list, which I compiled outside of Target while scratching my hairline.

"You Know You're Getting Old When..."

* people compliment you for how good you used to look.
* you drive with your hands in the 10:00 - 2:00 position.
* you pull a muscle while applying Ben Gay.
* you work sex into the laundry cycle.
* you "sleep in" till seven a.m.
* you bowl for exercise.
* you say that "age is just a number."
* you forget things ... like stop signs.
* your dog drags around a fire hydrant.
* there's no room left for mental notes.
* you recognize your furniture in the antique store.
* you sing along with elevator music.
* you finish entire novels over a bowel movement.
* you announce said bowel movement to family and friends.
* you stop bending down to get things and learn to use your toes instead.
* you eat your raisins one at a time.
* your just-woke-up face lasts all day long.
* you start to write lists like this one.