Age Is A Misperception – Do Not Go Gentle. . . .

That’s me on the treadmill. Hanging on to my youth for dear life. As Dylan Thomas tells us,  “Do not go gentle into that good night. . . .”   

I remember, back in my teens, thinking that 30 was old.  Now, in my defense, there was no guaranty any of my friends would see that age.  Some didn’t.  

Now that I’m as old as Methuselah, I laugh at the perceptions I once had concerning “old people.”

It seems those perceptions are still around, especially among the young advertising guns on Madison Avenue.  They don’t keep it to themselves. 

Now, their misperceptions are not only being distributed in magazines and television, they inundate your life through internet ads and unsolicited emails. 

Most of the uninvited reminders involve my pecker.  

I am showered (how’s that for a play on words?) with ads concerning the perceived functioning of my favorite appendage.

A lion’s share of those ads involve my prostate.  It’s like everyman in the world’s prostate suddenly turns on their owner when they reach 60.  Now it’s true, there is a fair number in my demographic with that problem, but luckily not me.  I delete at least 50 emails a day with the word prostate in its heading. 

I also love the TV ads that promise us old geezers a simple surgical tweak that will have us all pissing like race horses.

Not sure I want to piss like a race horse. 

Another corresponding recurring theme in my emails is bladder control. Some focus on ways to maintain it while others offer you recommendations on how to deal with it once it’s lost.  Again, luckily not an issue.  Another 50 emails in my in box must be deleted. 

But the emails and advertisments that are the most insidious, the ones that are sent just to break us down as men, are the hundreds of emails with the the words “rock hard” in their headings.  My hand now cramps from deleting them.  Perfectly good waste of my hand. 

These emails bring to mind one of my favorite Monty Python scenes. 

Now, the good news is that these emails and ads contain an implied acknowledgement that us old folks still like sex.  We do.  We really, really, really do.  Really.
And most of us are — if only through multiple decades of experience alone – really good at it. 

Take basketball as an analogy. You want to be good at shooting free throws.  Shoot a thousand free throws at practice.  Everytime you step to that line, you exude confidence.  You know you are putting points on the board. Voila.

The bad news is the implication from these ads and emails that it’s a given that we cannot cut it on our own. Blasphemy. 

Now I’m not saying that we can’t all use a little boost now and again. 

Indeed, I remember, as a young man, an older friend sharing this pythy proverb:  “I may not be as good as I once was, but I’m as good ‘once’ as I ever was.”      

I get that now.  So our repertoire gets tweaked along the way.   

But to be inundated on a daily basis from twenty-something strangers in the outside world that, now that you have hit medicare age, you can no longer fully function without purchasing  Daddy’s little helpers will certainly break even the strongest willed.  Enough I say!   

I’m firing my Junk Mail genie. 

Anyway, the good news about getting old is that you can throw your tantrems and rant at the world, like I just did.  What a surprise, tantreming makes me horny.  Don’t let that get out, or Big Pharma will be coming for me.

Now I have to go cuddle a kitty (not a euphemism, really), do my rounds and commit some self abuse (again, not a euphemism) on the treadmill.

But first let me take fifteen minutes to delete this morning’s pecker emails before I go. 

You fine, five readers ignore this old man’s ranting.  

But just wait, your emails are coming. 

So ignore them, delete them, block them if you are technologically savvy. 

And go out there and have a great day.