Nobody's Absurdities, The Impervious No. 50

The Perfect Care for Your 50th Birthday.
Nobody's Opinion; I cannot believe I’ve finally made it to 50 Nobody’s Absurdities. For this you have the masterful Doug Powers to blame, who once commented that he like absurdities.

He was not specific, so don’t be too hard on him.

Anyway, the number 50 has a lot of meaning. It’s the lifespan (in years) of vultures and clostridium botulinum spores, which you can find breeding alongside each other at this very minute at Ceasar's Palace in Las Vegas.

It’s also the time it takes an atom of neutral hydrogen to emit one 21-centimeter radio wave, which explains why most people’s hair goes gray around 50. (?)

It takes fifty years to replace a forest destroyed by fire and fifty years for untreated newspapers to decompose.

I have no idea what an “untreated” newspaper is, but I bet it has a carbon footprint, and looks like the New York Times.

The age of fifty is when you realize that, what the heck, you wasted the first fifty years of your life, so now for the next fifty years you vow to get really serious and do a much better job wasting the last fifty…because after all, you’ve had fifty years of good solid practice.

You can continue along you’re normal path of amenable forgetfulness, if you don’t get hit by Al Gore’s hockey stick on your way to the bank. I should know. I’ve forgotten Al’s stick already. In my mind, somewhere in his childhood, he ran into a fast moving puck.

So here in my usual…don’t try to make sense out of this order, are some things that you might take note of should you reach the age of fifty.

Hopefully, you will remain impervious.

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When you turn fifty, you will still feel twenty-two. This will make you wonder how come all of a sudden you think about things that never entered your mind at twenty-two, when you still feel twenty-two. And then because you were too stupid to know the things at twenty-two that you do at fifty, it’s too late to do anything about them. So why worry about it? If God wanted you to be smarter, he would have given you a clue.

Don’t forget to ask your dead Prussian grandmother to write her recipe for German potato salad down. (Before she dies that is.) If there are ANY family recipes, get them out the heads of your relatives now. Do not, I repeat, do not depend on relatives to remember. You can’t beat them up anymore.

If you reach fifty…do not look in mirrors. Why depress yourself? Get yourself a good ball cap. Do not wear flip-flops. Don’t even go to the pool, wet yourself with a hose, in your fenced in back-yard.

Call everyone you meet…a youngster. Talk about the days of Harry Truman, so they will think you really look good for your age. Pretend your seventy to everyone you meet…the looks are priceless, and it gives you the advantage.

If you are a man, be sure and tell that young teenager with the diamond cross in her belly button how nice it is to see a good Christian girl.

Call every politician in our government a “commie #&%$.” Young people need your expertise, it’s time you start telling them what you think. And keep it short. They have the attention span of about a two-second commercial on MTV.

Go ahead and yell at people who butt in front of you in lines, they deserve it.

If you’ve got the money, get as much plastic surgery as you can. If you don’t, then get the darkest sun tan you can…don’t even bother with sunscreen, unless you are addicted to golf. In that case, you need a big hat, and maybe someone to hit the ball for you. When you are old, and get a tan, you look rich, so nobody cares if your wrinkled, they only care that you MAY have money. Leather is in.

Be very happy that Lindsey and Paris are young and incredible stupid, something you never were…unless you were. Then be glad you were never famous.

God was merciful.

If you still have kids at home when your fifty, you started too late---but don’t worry, there are things you can do to make the kids want to get out. Get a pack of dogs---stop buying them video games, suggest they actually pay rent, or bribe them with future monetary rewards…talk about the plots in Florida they will inherit someday if they move out, or the vast investments that you don’t have. They don’t know these things don’t exist. They wouldn’t know a Dow from a Jones…unless it’s in a rap song.

Don’t tell them. They have not been taught a thing in school, so life will not hit them too hard, until it’s too late to do anything about it…about the time they turn fifty.

And remember the proverb:

Heaven protects children, sailors, and drunken men.

So if you make it to 50: act like a kid, take a lot of cruises and get drunk whenever you want.

You might just make it another 50 years.