New Age

According to the new life-expectancy statistics, everyone is living longer and healthier these days.  Forty is now the new thirty, fifty is the new forty, sixty is the new fifty, and seventy is . . . well seventy is just seventy.  Having taken a number of "real age" quizzes in the past two years, I know I'm getting younger every year.  Next year I plan to start shaving and my goal is puberty.

I'm not sure what to make of these "new ages" however.  According to a recent quiz (which revealed that I was more "fit" than most men in their thirties), I must take umbrage by the fact that I have pain in my knees and arthritis in my shoulders.  I am also squarely in the "graying of America" and there are some days when my "real" age rears its ugly head in the form of AARP offers and unexpected calls from insurance agents who are trying to sell me nursing home insurance.  

The fact is, age is relative . . . but it is relative in the same way that a year is a year and a month is a month.  Time counts for something.  And so does experience.

I like to remind my wife every week that I am an "experienced male" and that my expertise is boosted by a widening array of drugs that are designed to give me energy and pain relief.  These over-the-counter drugs are great, and each is heightened by caffeine, the drug of choice for oldies like me.

One of these days I'm going to take a quiz that will reveal my true age.  The quiz will demonstrate that, within hours, I should be dead (give or take a few minutes).  I only hope that I will be able to complete the quiz before I keel.  That's how I'd like to go . . . to keel.  

Next week, I'm taking a quiz that will reveal how I should go.  And if I don't like the outcome . . . I may not go at all.