OLD FOGEY SETTING IN

Let’s face it, at 70 years of age I’m an old fogey! Hard to believe with these boyish looks and body, that that is the case.

It all starts early in the morning. What time is early? For me about 4:30 AM. My wife has been up for a while already!  I awaken from my beauty rest or sleep and realize something is calling me.  It is my bladder telling me it needs to unload. This is a problem because I don’t feel like getting out of bed. No, in fact I am afraid to get out of bed. The spot in the bed I occupy is perfect.  The temperature is perfect, my body is feeling like it never felt before, in perfect harmony with the temperature, after all night of finding the right spot. Last I looked it was 3:00 AM, and then suddenly it was 4:30 AM, leaving me in complete surprise that an hour and one half goes by in seconds.

There is also an underlining problem to consider, mainly, my cranky old body if I move to get up, certain body parts would kick in in protest, reminding me that they hurt. Sudden movements, upward or sideways, will cause me to regret moving, causing me to wish to lie down and die to get it over with.

A raging debate now begins. Do I in lieu of the aches and pains, subject myself to a gym session? Will it hurt if I go? I can imagine the pains protesting on the gym floor, I will suffer! Maybe I should not go, then I prevent myself from suffering serious injury. But then, if I don’t, I have pre-paid for these sessions, that would be wasteful. I decide to go, and if the slightest thing feels wrong, well I’ll just jump off the old treadmill and go on home. Maybe even stop at either Burger King or Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. I think about that and remind myself that such behavior on my part results in guilt. Who cares. I could even stop at the diner.

I don’t shower, I put on my gym clothes, not showering since I will be working up a sweat soon.

Downstairs I head, to get a cup of coffee with my early morning snack: about 100,000 pills, which are ingested with orange juice, followed by my coffee. It is here that I indulge in self-torture, putting on the CBS morning news and subjecting myself to John Elliot, the so called weather man. This is a man who irritates me, why? Because he thinks the news is about him. Rather than give me the weather he gives me stupid opinions and dopey jokes, accompanied by his exaggerated body movements. I would like to kill him, but the TV is new. TLW (The Little Woman) asks me: “If you hate him so much, why do you watch him?” She doesn’t understand, if I don’t watch, and he doesn’t irritate me, I might as well go back to bed, there is nothing to live for. I know, pretty sad.

I watch and sip my coffee, swear under my breath at the weather and the news in general, and run a check on my body parts, they are still attached so off I will go to the gym. Now you can’t just go off to the gym if you are Joe Del Bloggolo, no, there is preparation to do. Get a clean towel to sweat into, put my cell phone into a black bag I carry along with my wallet and car keys, the bag, is a travel bag and also contains my workout gloves and lock for the locker, and finally get my water thermos that registers how much water I am taking in.

The gym is a happy place for me, except for the stupid scanner that never reads my bar code, either the one on my key chain or on my phone. This lunacy goes on every morning, I scan and the young lady shakes her head ‘No’.  In the lower level is a movie theatre to walk on the treadmill and watch a movie, making the time fly. But I have a certain locker, one that I use every morning, and if someone is in it before me, I think of how I could kill them. I could sneeze on their lock, maybe do other terrible things to it, but then I get over it and move on to the closest one available. This also holds true for the treadmill I like to use and the cruncher I work on. People have to go away. Man they’re annoying!

Once my workout is over, I climb the steps to the main floor and out the door.

Now in the old days, when a young lass wore something very tight, I would marvel at it, congratulate myself for catching a look at it and think it is a good day. Now-a days, if I see that, I wonder how she can walk. That is getting old!

Coming home, I look for my newspaper that comes so late in the day that it is almost yesterday’s newspaper. The dummy news delivery man just tosses the paper, and where it goes is anybody’s guess. I wish the moron terrible things such as paper cuts, and no tips. I fiddle with my keys, I have so many I don’t even know what some of them are for anymore. I pour that second cup of coffee, get a yogurt and add some walnuts chopped on top and that is my breakfast. At that point I get mad looking for my appointments book, find it and discover I have a meeting early in the day, there is no time for anything else, or I go to Southampton to visit my daughter in her rehab center.

It is getting on the road that I am the most cranky. It seems there are a lot of morons driving around, some of them should not even be breathing, let alone driving. There is Stupid who tail gates, he has to slow down to a crawl until he passes me, making me very happy, there is Moron who drives like a snail, there is the dopey moron who suddenly pulls in front of me in the fast lane and slows down to a snail’s pace. These people need to be killed at once. Oh course Dopey Banana is always on the road, he likes to ride both lanes so you don’t know where he is going.

I won’t go into mid-morning because I’m tired of typing.

Actually I’m a sweet heart, just cranky.