Old Coot, Yes Me

One of the questions that I'm constantly asked is what it's like to be so old.

It's not that people come out and just say it. They beat around the bush. They hem and they haw. They make it like an idiot when all they have to do is say, "So, old man. What's it like?"

I'll tell you what it's like: it's getting up three times a night to trickle some pee into the toilet.

It's getting heart burn when you drink water.

It's having a beer and falling down.

It's thinking about your sex life and not really remembering it.

It's having stupid jackasses asking you what it's like to be old.

There's some upside though:

I scream at pigeons and no one's the wiser for it. They just see an old coot being cootish.

I pretend to fall asleep when I don't want to listen to what people are saying.

I say random, obnoxious things just to see how people react. And they don't react. It's amazing. They just think there's an old coot being an old coot and they let the most ridiculous things pass by.

I told a young woman she had beautiful breasts the other day. I expected something. A slap maybe. Instead, she looked at me, stammered a bit, flushed a bit red and muttered something between, "thanks" and "see ya later, ya nasty dodger."

My health is good. My mind is good. I'm not too quick on my feet though. And I appear a little brittle. But I've come across some powders and dusts in my travels and expect to live for another good long time. I may be pushing 100 but I think 115 or 120 isn't out of the question.

More on all that another day.

Believe Another Street

I can't believe I forgot the most important thing about this trip that I took down and then back up the street. You see, they've been doing street work. That's the whole reason I went for my walk in the first place. They're turning the asphalt, taking out the old and implenting the new. Going from gray to black with a fancy white stripe down the middle of the road.

Now, I'm all for fancy white stripes. But this damn black asphalt thing makes me wonder. Here's what I wonder: Why make the street so damn hot.

And that's why I was thirsty, because I was walking down this damn black hot street that they're making and the only saving grace is the white stripe down the middle.

When I was much younger than I am today...

Let me rephrase that because unless you've been where I've been and through the worm holes and madness that is dimension hopping you don't really understand what age is.

So.

When my cell structure retained greater elasticity my lover (at the time) and I had the good fortune of catching a ride to Otnose for a considerable amount of teleroticism. All in all it was quite the vacation. We went at it so much we each had little baby callouses on our foreheads.

But I'm missing the point.

The point is that on Otnose they don't have black asphalt with white stripes. They have baby blue asphalt with red stripes and not only is it prettier, it's not so damn hot either.

This is what I told the road crew when I was out on my walk. Really, I said, this is all crap.

And they took that personally instead of recognizing the crap that it was.

Earthlings are a simple-minded bunch.

One of the men said to me: Look buddy, get out here.

And that was when I realized that I needed both a drink and a pee.

The Street

I was walking down the street today. The street's pretty long so it was a pretty long walk. Not as long as the walk I took the other day but still, it was pretty damn long.

I'd say it was about 25 minutes. And when I was done walking I was pretty thirsty but there was no place to get water or any other drink so I drank my spit. Or, I should say, I sucked on my spit. But sucking on spit's pretty unsatisfactory. It's kinda like you're drinking yourself.

And since you're probably perspiring as well, you're actually losing yourself as you're sucking yourself.

This was no good. I needed some liquids. I needed quality, hydrating liquids to get me through the day.

So I walked back down the street. This time I walked in the opposite direction because walking in the direction I had been walking would have gotten me further away from where I wanted to be than if I headed back in the direction that I wanted to be. So that's the direction I walked in.

When I got back to where I started there was a bathroom and in the bathroom there was a sink. It was really weird though because before I got to the sink to suck done some water I really had to pee. So I pee'd. But how weird is that. You're really thirsty but you have to pee. It's kind of like a double screw. Like, yeah, you need water but you're going to lose more water so you'll need even more water. That's a stupid biological design if I ever heard of one.

If it was up to me, there would be no peeing when you're thirsty. How are you supposed to survive in a desert if you have no water and you're peeing all over the place. Hell if I know. It's just dumb.

So, anyway, I pee'd. And then I cupped my hands and drank some water from the tap.

And no, I did not wash my hands.