Aging With Panache

It’s just so easy to get complacent.

When you’ve accepted that, yes, we are all indeed lurching towards our inevitable demise, you tend to let some things go.

Some things being defined as: joining a band and hitting the road to sold out arenas, a shot in professional sports, sleeping through the night without having to get up to take a piss.

We stave off the reaper in various ways, and often they include memberships to various gyms and Pilates gangs or signing up for a 5k suffer-fest. For me, a foray into the world of CrossFit Springfield is my own personal attempt to keep the dogs of arthritis at bay.

Even so, when grey hairs decide to make an appearance on my noggin, I take a little comfort in the fact that The Wife says “oh no, honey, grey hairs make you look distinguished. In fact damn you as a gender, men get better looking as they age while women tend to look like hell.” This adds up to a contest between us as to who is aging with less grace and nobody wins. So yeah, I can handle that part.

But this morning I made a startling and disturbing discovery:

Some grey chest hair.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

This grim visage made me clutch my chest, thereby adding to the image of an old man suffering his daily chest pains. What’s next? Will the never-as-yet-chiseled body begin to resemble melting candle wax? Will I start paying more attention to Wilford Brimley ads concerning “the diabeetus”? Is is time to contact the Office On Aging and figure out how to make my home less prone to being a danger to my hips?

Yes, I do realize that compared to childhood cancer, malnutrition issues around the world and the decision to financially reward the knuckledraggers  from “Jersey Shore”, some snow on the side of the shed is really no big deal. And it isn’t, except as a harbinger of our slow march towards being referred to in the past tense. Don’t you start railing on me about being concerned about petty crap until you, too, have kinky hair coming off your ear lobes and at least one random hair growing under your eyelid. In so many respects, getting older is such a relief: being comfortable with who you really are as opposed to who you think you should be, not having to worry about fake ID’s, a slightly better perspective on a few things and better rates on car insurance, all good.

But grey hairs on the chest?

This just won’t stand.

The only logical and reasonable response to this unchecked aggression is to counter in the age-old tradition of European men and seniors down in Florida: I must begin to wear many heavy gold chains around my neck, thereby allowing me the chance to display my wares in a most manly fashion. Combine that with an ill-fitting Speedo swimsuit in the summertime, and that, my friends is a surefire recipe for aging with style.

Damn the naysayers, I shall NOT fear the Reaper.