I’m already upset, in advance, that the local movie theaters in Richmond, Virginia will grant me the Senior Citizen rate in just 1 1/2 years, when I turn 60.
For I have been the “Eternal Puer”— married late (47), have no kids, and few responsibilities except to be pretty and occasionally water the plants. But much of my inner self-identity, behind
this mockery-of-a-sham-of-a-travesty-of-a-guy who speaks through my mouth to “adults,” is a complete
child. Really. I’m the one they wrote The Peter Pan Syndrome about. I never grew up. I still feel pretty much exactly the way I did as a little kid. I didn’t have to go looking for my “inner child” because it was never missing.
Fortunately, like attracts like, and I found in my wife that very same quality, which is what connects us the most: she is roughly the same emotional age as me, and the two of us are extremely goofy and silly in the privacy of our own home. For example, Shari is famous for her “Cat Leaving the Pogrom” routine, which involves wrapping both her and our cat Squarcialupi’s head in a babushka, then, carrying the cat, the two of them walk slowly and mournfully away, sadly muttering “Oy” and “Me-oy.” Her other favorite trick is to walk in place, mopping her brow, checking her watch, and waving to people “across the street,” then making me guess whether she’s really walking or standing still. I almost always get it wrong. (Note: photo depicts Shari with the late Retama, resting after a performance of the Mexican Hat Dance.)
As for me, I tend to stick to the old trick I learned when I was about 8, of hiding her full cup of coffee in the Saran Wrap drawer when she turns away for half a second to reach for the cream, leaving her bewildered, wondering what she did with her coffee. It only worked the first time, not the hundred and first, but I continue doing it anyway, it tickles me so. And she continues to act bewildered, and, I should add, her coffee doesn’t always end in the Saran Wrap drawer. Sometimes it’s in with the dishtowels. My other routine kicks in when I can’t find one of my possessions—but only something truly vital, like the plastic case for my "Best of The Zombies" CD. In that situation, she will overhear me on the phone in the next room, dialing 9-1-1 to report a break-in and theft. “What?” I’ll say. “Yes, yes, they must have gotten in last night…uh-huh…What did they take? It’s a CD case…are you familiar with the 60s band, The Zombies?….that’s right, they sang ‘She’s Not There’…” and so forth.
So this is the guy they’re about to start calling a Senior Citizen. How did this happen? How is it that I often find myself to be the oldest person in a gathering, when I still secretly feel like I must be the youngest? And how is it possible that the pretty young girls who catch my eye across the room think I’m someone’s father, a chaperone at the party? Or even worse, that I’m someone’s Uncle Louie who wears his pants too high. When did my knees start to require Ultra-Strength Tiger Balm, heavy-duty braces and four Advil to go on a hike? I keep hearing my German grandmother, at 94, repeating again and again, “Yungevesen unt altgevorden”—“I was young, and I got old.” YES! THAT’S IT! That’s exactly what happened!
To be more graceful about the
aging process, I suppose it’s time I stopped browsing in the TOYS aisle at CVS, often coming home with a new and unusual bubble-maker or miniature cement truck—the really cool kind where the thing on the back actually rotates! And maybe I should stop wasting 50 cents every time I pass one of those gumball machines outside the supermarket that dispenses the tiny people in plastic cups.
Okay, maybe one more; I just need the Policeman to complete the village scene that I have been developing on the little shelf above our stove.
An
ex-girlfriend was visiting us once, and, looking around, she casually mentioned how “clearing up the clutter and getting rid of unnecessary objects” had really “calmed her home space.”
She seemed to be indicating the little wind-up scuba diver in the soap dish.
Yeah, right, I thought. As if, by any stretch of the imagination, the scuba guy or the nearby wind-up marching-bear-trombone-player could be considered
unnecessary. Ha! No wonder we broke up! (Shari and I have a $1 ceiling on our spending budget for birthday presents, and you would just be amazed at some of the fantastic stuff you can buy for under a dollar. Although for Hanukah this year, I splurged and sprang for the $2.95 flip-top monkey toothbrush holder. It was a huge hit. Everyone in our house loved it. Both of us.
I actually save us a ton of money in other ways due to my arrested development. I am still wearing the belt I bought in my junior year of high school, and my basic daily outfit of jeans, t-shirt and flannel shirt were all purchased at K-Mart Menswear over 22 years ago. On sale. And still good as new! One area that remains problematic, financially speaking, is food, because I travel a fair amount, and when I’m on the road I tend to eat out a lot, and often it’s with friends who choose somewhat pricey joints. But I’ve devised a great system to balance out my expenses: when I’m away, I put Shari on a $2/day food budget, which suits her diet perfectly, since she basically lives on microwave popcorn and celery. It’s a bit sad though, when occasionally I’ll call in to check up on her, and she’ll say, “Pleeeeze can I defrost a burrito? I’m really hungry.” I don’t think so; those organic burritos run about $4.99 apiece. “The best I can do,” I’ll tell her, “is offer you a $1 food allowance raise, but ONLY for this week.” “Thank you sooo much!” Women. Give them an inch.
