The Catcher in the Rye

 Retirement is where you wake up in the morning and don’t know what day it is. . . and you don’t care!

 

In “Catcher in the Rye” it examined the problem of attempting to erase all the obscenities from all the public bathroom stalls. And realizing it is fruitless! Life itself can be an obscenity. When you find someone who is as obscene as you are, marry them! 

 

And family is one of the obscenest situations there is. Even ex’s stop showing up for Thanksgiving. Not family. And you must ask yourself; if all these people are the same ie “family” how come they’re all different religions. And always some eternal judge in the crowd. He’s usually, but not always the one nobody wants the little girls around. Yeah! THAT guy!

 

As I sit alone each morning and consider life weird thoughts pop in my head. Like why polygamy doesn’t work. How do you get along with fourteen mothers in law? Think about that. I’ll give you time. 

 

Someone at NextDoor took it upon themselves to complain about every post I made. And I wasn’t even posting any of my good stuff! Just old guy crap I thought would fit but they have more rules than the Talmud. Don’t SPAM. Now think about that. Whenever you repeat yourself, you are committing a SPAM infraction. NextDoor is an old folk's site. C’mon! How many young people will scroll, looking for sales at the supermarket? Or complain about the shortage of motorized carts? And we do REPEAT ourselves. I tell my grandkids the same joke every morning before school. They say I have Alzheimer’s. I say they can’t catch the joke. 

 

When you turn seventy it changes you, you know? I used to wake up, say a morning prayer, take a shower and make coffee. Now I wake up, say, “DAMN!” Sniff my armpits and open a Starbucks. Then I smoke my first politically incorrect cigarette while the grandkids warn me about all the effects of smoking. The fact is if I can hang in there for ten more years when I die my demise will be considered one of those “about time” deaths where nobody comes to my funeral. Nobody cares and you’re glad to go!

 

Back to NextDoor, I have this woman next door to me, or rather behind me who is a bit adverse to my taking my next breath. Over the years she has dedicated her life to making MY life a hell on earth sans the devil and all his angels whom I can only suspect hang out at her house. Of late she acquired a peacock. I crappith thee not! As opposed to a peahen as differentiated by the incredible screech it emitted every morning just before sunrise. And not one NextDoorophite saw fit to even mention this in any comment. The sound the creature made was a loud discombobulated high shrill howl that, should you listen closely sounded like the word, “HELP!” Now, in addition to the bird the yard was the habitation of two rather robust pit bulldogs, fierce, angry, and the breed that frequently hits the news after eating someone’s face off. At any rate one morning I did not hear the feathered alarm clock alert the neighborhood about the arrival of a new day. Didn’t hear it the next day, or the next. Now, I’m just surmising but I would guess the dogs took care of the noise pollution in a rather pit-bull way. I laughed my head off, but then that’s just me.

 

So, here I am, same ol’ same ol’, sitting on my porch writing this to a faceless crowd, coffee, cigarette, and very little planned for that day except a weather report. Perhaps a trip to the supermarket to look at young women and properly creep them out as if I can chase any of them down in the parking lot with my supermarket motorized cart and have no idea what I’d do with one should I ever catch her.

 

And age is not a number. When you are my age, and some young lady says that the only number she’s interested in is my account number. And I’m ok with that. Age is relative, not just a number. What you consider “young” at twenty-five is vastly different from young at sixty-five. I will enjoy seeing a twenty something jogger but a fifty-year-old walker? Oh no! Not that!

 

Getting old is no fun, but it doesn’t have to be painful. Just don’t fall for what I call “The Waltons Myth.” Remember the closing scene? You know, good night whomever, yada yada yada. Ever notice grandpa bidding Mary Ellen goodnight in a “see you later voice?” Asking for a friend.