The boss and I were sitting out on the back porch drinking coffee when I said I might insulate and fix up my workshop. “Have you run depreciation and amortization schedules?” she asked. “You’re getting pretty long in the tooth? Right?”
I thought about saying her next husband could use it as his safe place, but… well, discretion, etc.
She’s right, though. I had a birthday this week and I’m absolutely, unrefutably geriatric. I still listen to the Kinks (yes, they’re all dead) and think most of the music young people play today is utter crap. I doubt anyone under the age of 40 knows how to tie a necktie. I recall my father’s outrage when the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and realize I’ve turned into him. The boss is right. I don’t need to fix up my workshop. I need knee surgery.
My greatest disappointment in old age is belonging to a generation that caught more breaks and advantages than any other generation in the history of mankind and then has the gall to elect someone like Donald Trump as president.
The biggest surprise is how we’ve been zuckerberged and spend two hours of our daily “leisure time” staring into our palms. When the Internet rolled out 30 years ago – this week – I thought it was the dawning of a new age, like the Industrial Revolution, and the work week would gradually shorten from 40 hours to 32. Instead, 25% of the workforce now works 49 hours a week, and the average American worker gets 3.5 fewer vacation and sick days than in the 1970s. And s/he gets paid less.
The most perplexing of my discoveries is how unimportant I am. That’s mitigated by the fact that no one is important. Some people perform important work or make a buck or two or go to the moon, but we are all just twiddling with time before we become memory. Memory is important. I hope I’m a good one. I hope you are too.
Now I’m going to walk the dog. Then I’m going to take the boss out to dinner and tell her how much I love her.