Once men make peace with being middle aged, there comes a point when they begin to suspect the onset of approaching Geezerhood. To the truly conscious, it is quite evident when that occurs, but alas, few of us are really that self-awere. Never fear: Assembled by the Council of Geezers (a newly recognized organization), here are 12 signs that Geezerhood is upon you. Recognizing yourself in any one of these allows you to apply for membership in the club.
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| Keep going...lower....lower.... |
1. When an on-line account asks you to define your birth year during registration, you now need to scroll nearly to the bottom of the drop-down list to find it. Startled, you realize you were born barely 10 years after World War 2.
2. You prefer your E-book reader not because it's cool technology, but because you can set the print large enough to read without glasses.
3. Your wife rubs her palm in the center of your back in the middle of the night not because she's feeling frisky, but because you're not snoring and she's checking to make sure you're still breathing.
4. You check your 401k account balances weekly, and you genuinely understand the concept of "equity." You actually fret over the question "Bonds or stocks?"
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Robert Plant: Lead singer of Led Zeppelin,
and Geezer extraordinaire |
5. The Kennedy Center Honors programs has become much hipper in recent years, obviously. Once mired in the likes of Martha Graham, Helen Hayes, and Jimmy Cagney, the program now has the great good sense to honor Springsteen, Dylan, David Letterman, and Led Zeppelin.
6. Your kids no longer treat you like stern gods, and you have also passed through the period where you're a moron; they now interact with you like regular people. Enjoy it: the tolerant pity phase is just down the road.
7. On cable television, the History Channel, Discovery, and the Weather Channel are far more interesting than HBO or Showtime. You'd rather watch "Hoarders" and "Pawn Stars" than "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men." Everglades pythons exploding after they swallow alligators is more intriguing than bare boobies on "Boardwalk Empire."
8. "Spam" for you will always be a suspicious canned meat from the Hormel meat company. You've given up trying to understand the other kind of spam, or why we should be scared of it.
9. Having sex on the floor no longer has any appeal whatsoever. And man-on-bottom is preferred for a single reason: it's easy on the back.
10. When you exercise or work hard, the sweat soaking through your sweatshirt radiates out from your navel area, not your pectoral muscles. And you've now forgotten just when it was that your waist measurement began to exceed your inseam. You now understand those poor guys who cinch their trouser belts up at a point just below the armpits.
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"Hey, buddy, wanna score
some primo Kava? Cocktailhour
without the hangover." |
11. Rather than knowing all the different types of marijuana currently in circulation, you are now knowledgeable about the natural herbal cures for prostate trouble, high cholesterol, jet lag. You get your stash at Whole Foods, not at the northwest corner of Franklin St. & Chicago Avenue on Saturday night.
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| "Wasn't me. Was it you?" |
12. When standing at a urinal in a public restroom, you no longer have the muscle control necessary to hold back flatulence while peeing: it's all or nothing. And you're not really very embarrassed about it.
