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Five and Twenty-Four
There are only two good ages. Don t try to question me either. I ve thought it through. You can t change my mind.
Those ages are five and twenty-four.
Why five? Why not earlier? Well, up to three-years-old, you pretty much shit yourself every day. That s no good. At four, you re almost there, but your still pretty clumsy and fall for no real reason. You can t spell and can barely count. And, under no circumstances, are you allowed in the refrigerator. You have to beg for all your food.
And sometimes you still shit yourself.
But at five! Oh at five, within your world, you are self-sufficient. You never shit yourself. Sure, sometimes you wet your bed but you can get help if you need too, or sleep on the other side of the bed. At five, you can turn your mattress without waking your parents. Otherwise, you can do anything. If you re too cold, you can get your own blankie. Too hot? You can take your own shirt off. If you re bored, you can open your toy box and get your own toys. Hungry? You can open the fridge or the pantry.
Also, you re in kindergarten. Kindergarten! You have some freedom away from the folks. You re meeting new friends. Eating paste and crayons. Sure it s school. You re learning your ABCs and simple math and such. But the grades aren t real. There s no pressure. No real homework.
Now first grade. That s tough. All of the sudden there s homework and the expectation of good grades. That, for the rest of your school days grade school through college, never eases. It only gets worse and worse. Especially under the pressure of all this stuff getting on college transcripts and your permanent record.
It doesn t get better until twenty-four? Why not twenty-one? A lot of people like twenty-one. I mean, you re an adult. You can party and drink and get into girlie bars or those Chippendale parties. And that s the problem; you re drinking, a lot. And with drinking comes hangovers. One night of fun equals one day of not being able to open your eyes in sunlight or hear anything louder than a mouse fart without almost throwing up. No fun. No good.
Besides, you re probably still in college or trade school (see first grade, above).
Nope. I m sticking with twenty-four. Like twenty-one, you re still partying a little. But you re not getting so drunk that you ruin the whole next day. You re much more responsible with our having-funness.
Most of you are out of college or trade school or getting established in your career. For the first time in your life, you are working a real job and have more money than you ve ever had. You don t have the huge financial burdens that come with big adulthood mortgages, day care, baby formula, Pampers, two car payments, 401k deductions, and on and on.
Nope, you ve got cash and you ve probably got consistent nookie. Think about it, if you re not married, you probably have some sort of long-term commitment. You re not out there trolling the clubs every weekend hoping to run into Mr. Right (or not run into Mr. Wrong) or the next piece of ass. You probably have someone under your arm. Someone you re comfortable with and you re having a lot of sex.
(Mock me if you will, but sex is among Maslow s most basic needs in his Heirarchy of Needs. Right up there with air, food, and water. Don t believe me? Look it up yourself.)
After twenty-four, life gets pretty serious. Most of us are really busting ass establishing a career and trying to figure out how to make money. We re getting married and having children and starting to worry about our weight and cholesterol levels. We have second mortgages and life insurance. Things are getting stressful. This kind of stress doesn t ease up.
Some people say life begins at fifty. Those are trying to make themselves feel better about growing older. They are the same people who are losing the fight against male pattern baldness and ear hair. They are getting facelifts and tummy tucks and plucking out their gray pubic hairs. They are the young old. And underneath it all, they are very worried about the rest of their lives and their eventual, unavoidable death.
Besides, if you groan when you bend over, life ain t as good as when you didn t have to do that. Besides, at fifty, you re starting to worry about shitting yourself again.
Comments
BWG said:
Besides, at fifty, you're starting to worry about shitting yourself again.
Or not. In which case you need Metamucil.
Posted on Nov 08, 2005 05:07 AM
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