**If you missed Bob’s debut here at the coots check it out here. If you wan’t to read some sage wisdom about simple living check out his great blog at JuicyMaters.com. Thanks for another great article Bob, you are most definitely now one of us Coots**
Sheesh! Lately it seems that this is Old Cantankerous Coots instead of Cantankerous Old Coots. Ol’ Ralph over there concentrates on retirement over there at his blog, and then links us to other bloggers who talk about retirement, some very active retirement but retirement just the same, and I just sit here, fat and happy, making those funny raspberry noises…phlettttt…
I’ve done my best to ignore the aging issue, and some health problems have conspired to help me do so. After all, I can blame my inability to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail on diabetes based foot problems, NOT on the aging process. My lack of endurance I can lay at the feet of my own stupidity, smoking induced COPD, NOT on the aging process. Same thing with my lack of strength. A couple of years ago I decided that my shrink in rehab didn’t know what he was talking about, that I could have a drink, just one little itty bitty drink before dinner, and not go back to the half gallon of gin a day I had indulged in for a few years before going to rehab. Eight months later I found myself in the ICU almost dead from malnutrition and a badly damaged liver. See? My lack of strength is due to the booze, NOT the aging process.
This morning though, I got slapped in the face with the cold dead fish of reality. Oddly, it was not a physical limitation that woke me up, but a mental unwillingness to do what I used to do.
A little you need to know about me so this make sense. Either I am Oscar Madison or Oscar Madison is me. I purchased my housekeeping skills at Oscar Madison R Us. My philosophy tends toward, “Wash the dishes? Why? There are still clean dishes to use…”
Combined with that has always been a college kid’s nonchalance toward left over food storage.
OK… With that background, I ordered a pizza last night. Not a personal pan size pizza, not even a large pizza, but a super sized great big humongous pizza. After all, the difference in price between a small pizza and a ginormous pizza these days is about 37¢, and (college kid thinking here) the leftovers would make a fantastic breakfast this morning, right?
Well, I got up this morning, fixed my coffee, and felt my stomach say “feed me, feed me”. I walked into the kitchen, saw the pizza box on the counter (where any college kid would have left it), and started to eat the remainder for breakfast.
“Started to” is the operative phrase here.
Shit! Maybe I am getting old(er).
