Sunday, January 07, 2007

Growing Old

Signs I am, in fact, not as young as I once was:

1. I would prefer a belly laugh from a six-month-old girl I'm holding to a wink from a 25 year old woman three seats down at a bar. By a lot. Babies are my favorite toys.

2. A great bowl of soup is better than a good dessert.

3. Give me some nice poached fish rather than a steak, anytime.

4. I have a two drink limit. Not so I can drive, but so I don't fall asleep at the party.

I am not saying these preferences are a matter of prudence. Soup seriously tastes better to me than dessert. And who wants to have to take a nap at a party?

At one time, any one of these comparisons would have gone exactly the opposite way.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike,

Are you getting winks from 25 year olds at the bar?

Mungowitz said...

I don't get great soup very often, either.

Just a hypothetical comparison, in both cases.

Now, I admit me getting great soup is more likely than me getting that wink...unless the lady is reaching around for the harness on her aid dog, and her eye just happens to twitch....

Anonymous said...

I'm 25 and all 4 points apply to me. True, I'm a straight woman, but even if you made #1 sexual-preference-neutral it would probably still apply: Honestly, most six-month-old girls are much better company than your average 25-year-old guy winking at women from across the bar.

Mungowitz said...

Oh, now, 1:49 Anon: You miss the point.

Women are FAR more sensible. Of course women prefer these things, from the time they graduate from high school.

But I have a number of friends, male friends, who will take a lot of chances on the 25 year old woman who winks. Honestly, if she would wink at them, she'd wink at anything in pants. But that's not the point: they are swept away.

And of course you should like great soup, or some nice fish. Dessert and steak are actually pretty disgusting, and the standards of society are such that an "overweight" woman is one who is pretty at her ideal weight in terms of health. As long as a man can still waddle, he looks just fine...to himself, at least.

So, there's the real question: why do only OLD men come to recognize wisdom women are born with?

The answer may be, as my wife claims, found in Mencken's rule. I cite it so often you are all sick of it, but:

"No man, being married, can be a fool and not know it."

So, the answer is that most old men have finally been domesticated by the only force of civilization that could tame us: the legitimate scorn of a woman we care about.