Growing older must have some built-in advantages, mustn't it? Every stage of life has its downsides, sure, but they're almost always offset by the upsides, the perks, the good stuff. I'm getting old. I need some upsides.
Maybe it's an advantage that I can remember things from a long time ago, like the address of the house I lived in 40 years ago. Who knows when I'll need to mail a letter to someone in that house. Or a girlfriend that I dated about twice back when I was 19, whose family, I discovered when I picked her up to take her to her senior prom, adhered to the philosophy that withholding flatulence was unhealthy. As I waited for her, I sat there on the living room couch with her mother, father, and little brother, who must have had beans for supper. It was like being caught between the contestants in a farting event.
So it was some good news when I got this year's fishing license and sat down to read a book of rules that has gotten as fat as Tolstoy's "War and Peace," and discovered that the state of Minnesota hasn't forgotten about people getting older. For only $203, I can buy a lifetime fishing license. Thank you, all you legislators that have no confidence whatsoever that I'm going to live long enough to come out ahead on this deal. Your faith in the mortality tables that say I'll live just long enough to lose 10 bucks on this puts the lie to the fact that, in the world, we're 26th at doing math.
I'm tempted to jump on this deal, nonetheless. First, I'm going to call Medicare and see if they'll help pay the costs of having the emergency responders come out to get me back out of the boat when I'm 81. Heck. Getting in is easy. Any old fool can get into a boat. Social Security is a lot like that, too. Must be the same legislators using the same tables. No matter what you choose - start sooner, take less, or start later, take more - you might as well roll the dice and accept that both outcomes are likely as not to be correct. You'll come out 10 bucks short.
There's other news from the Department of Natural Resources that involves all the aquatic invaders that fishermen are spreading with their boats. If I get the lifetime license, and should I manage to get the boat into the lake after I've reached an age whereby I'll find myself driving down the road with a boat behind me wondering where I'm going, I'm going to have to give the darned boat a hot bath when I get home.
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As I understand it, old people don't bathe much, likely because they've forgotten the last time they did. And now bathe the boat? And let it set for five days while I try to remember what day it was that I washed it?
Was that Tuesday? No, Tuesday I had to go to the doctor about my memory.
Must have been Wednesday? No, Wednesday was the day I had to go get a cortisone shot for the shoulder that I hurt hooking the boat up.
It wasn't Thursday, because Thursday I poked myself in the eye with the fishing pole that somehow got loose in the doorway and attacked me as I fell over putting on my shoes.
Wasn't Friday. Old people change their underwear on Friday (if they remember).
Not Saturday, which is today, which I've spent most of looking for the list of things I had to do Monday through Thursday... like writing about how fun it is getting old.
