Culture Mush

Not to be braggadocios, but I was born young. As a toddler, I zoomed around the house, ate like a horse, used a diaper to do my business, and cried off 3,000 calories an hour. After I got out of that stage, I was still young, and I started playing tennis. 3 hours a day, 2 tournaments a month and then an hour a day at P.E… Plus some time spent at recess chasing girls around. If you are wondering, yes I stopped wearing a diaper once I made it to Kindergarten. After that stage, I got towards the Junior High and High School days. I was still young. I was playing tennis 5 hours a day, 6 days a week, playing basketball for 2 hours a day, and swimming 20 laps to cool down. In between the training, I had 3 tournaments a month, traveled about 20 times a year to various events, and I still spent my off time chasing girls. One might say that the “young” gene was strong in my genetic code.

As college arrived, I was still blessed with “The Young“. I was playing tennis 5 hours a day between classes, spending 2 hours in the gym or running, and I was still chasing the female species. Shortly after arriving at the University and playing Division 1 tennis, my shoulder decided that it would be cool to dislocate every 5 minutes, which made for a cool, but painful party trick. A torn labrum was the diagnoses, and it was at this time that the disease hit. No, it wasn’t scurvy of the shoulder. I had begun to battle a case of “The Old”.

The early stages of “The Old” weren’t very alarming. It first began with my personal rejection of the car stereo Gods. The first sign of my fleeting youngness was when I pulled up to a car at a stoplight and shot a glare to the driver because his stereo was shaking MY rear view mirror. Of course at that point, I had a 2,000 watt stereo in my car, but it dawned on me that I hadn’t cranked it up in quite some time. My first thought was that I was just having a bad day, and that I should attempt to admire the earth rattling thump, but the more I tried to appreciate it, the more it started to sound like a kicking midget encapsulated in a cardboard box. This was about the time that my dad and I shared a common view about something which of course struck me as odd. Was I done fighting the power and raging against the machine?

The next stage of The Old began right around the time that the car stereo annoyance kicked in. I have to start by rewinding back to the junior high days. Around the age of 13, I would be sitting in class and ignoring the teacher as usual while shooting off glances towards every female in my general vicinity that didn’t have 4 arms and 7 legs. Occasionally I would catch a peek of some exposed leg, or a classmate in a tight shirt, and I would get a funny tingle where I pee. I can even admit that after feeling that spark almost every 8.3 minutes, I was called up to the board a few times to solve math problems, in what resulted in a walk of shame. It was a shame because I didn’t know what to do with this thing, and all the girls in the class only liked to do “the thing” with things that belonged to older guys.

At 18, strip clubs with friends were like amusement parks, and any woman that brushed by resulted in a love affair that would last 3 minutes filled with dirty thoughts, a grimy lap dance and a depletion of my already limited amount of money. As I hit the beginning stages of the old, I realized that the walks of shame had disappeared, strip clubs were just something to take friends to when they come to town, and Skin-a-max is actually pretty damn boring. Once sexual desensitization occurred (at least in the case of my mind…the part still functioned as it is meant to), The Old became a real issue that I had to battle, and I had a hunch that it would only get worse as time went on.

Aside from the mental hang-ups of The Old that calmed my whoozymawhatzit down, negative physical side effects kicked in as well. The most noticeable of them all, was the inability to eat 16 cheeseburgers, 14 orders of fries and 8 milkshakes without gaining a pound. This was something that I was able to do daily before The Old kicked in. Now that this disease is in full effect, I’m lucky the be able to eat a Soy chicken breast, a glass of water and a slice of tofu without adding girth to my spare tire. What used to be a junk food fueled 12-pack has now become a health food fueled 4 pack with insulation. Looking around me at other guys with The Old, I find it hard to believe that this side effect will ever disappear. Since it’s a losing fight, I’ve decided to just pray that my wife sees me as a lovable teddy bear with some sex appeal in the upcoming years, as opposed to a gargantuan slob that needs male lipo every 3 months. I say male lipo, because I don’t know of a single guy that has had this procedure done. It’s as rare as seeing a male nurse, unless all of your friends are Filipino men.

The final stage of The Old isn’t too noticeable until you are made aware of it, which I will now do for you. It is most noticeable when sitting down or standing up. If you are in a chair right now and in a completely quiet room, stand up and have a good listen. Do you hear that grunt exhaling from your chest in an attempt to stand? How about the cracking joints that resemble the sound of popping popcorn? If you do, you too are experiencing what I am: A bad case of The Old.

You have two choices once this disease hits and I won’t sugar coat it:
1. Accept The Old as a totally natural occurrence and enjoy your life as it’s been intended. Let your joints get creaky, embrace the emergence of wrinkles, use your gut as a table to rest your dinner plate on, and enjoy bitching about everything.

2. Fight the onset of The Old! Erase wrinkles by getting massive amounts Botox shot in your face and getting a facelift to stretch you tighter than a drum. Lose the joint creaking by replacing all of your bones with NASA developed exoskeleton components like Anquan Boldin’s face (this is proven to work…Boldin has like 32876 fantasy football points this year…you too can do the same if you robotize yourself). Eat all you want and lose fat by creating a permanent incision that can accommodate an industrial sized dust buster, and suck out any excess fat that may accumulate on a weekly basis. ** If you really want to go the extra mile, replace your private part with a button activated, spring loaded device wrapped in latex.

Regardless of what which path you choose, I wish you the best when dealing with this disease. It’s never a fun thing, but just think…In a few years you can take advantage of senior citizen discounts, and you can get even with the younger generations by having them change your Depends and cleaning your house!

**Women can also fight this disease by using the same tips above, but by avoiding the button activated, spring loaded device wrapped in latex…and opting for a couple of chesticle fun bags popped into place to give you the appearance of being forever perky.

Well it’s a new day and Obama is now our Presidential elect. If you notice the date, you’re probably wondering how I can say this, but I may or may not have used my time machine, because I couldn’t wait to see the final result. As did the majority of America, I “voted for change”. Now that Obama is going to be our President of the United States in 77 days, I’d like to let you all (all 2 of my readers) know what change I will personally be in for now that the person I voted for has won the first time since I’ve been of voting age.

The first thing I’ll be noticing is that with the Obama’s victory comes smaller cell phone bills. I know, this wasn’t a campaign promise but this is an additional bonus. You might be wondering how this win will bring me a smaller phone bill, but it’s quite simple actually. Now that Obama has won, I’ll be getting fewer calls from the Republican camp trying to convince me that Obama is a baby killer, a Muslim extremist, and a person that doesn’t floss right. I will also have less college students calling me to tell me that a vote for McCain means that my indoor plumbing will overflow with toxic sludge. Yes, this was an actual threat and yes, I voted for Obama because the Toxic Avenger freaks me out.

The next think that will change is that I’ll actually have to take my dog outside to urinate. For the last 2 months, I’ve had enough Republican propaganda in my mailbox to cover my entire floor with glossy political pee pads. I’ll admit that I’ve fallen a few times due to the slick surfaces of the flyers, but it’s worth a few bruises to save a few bucks in pet store pee pad purchases.

One of the biggest changes is that I’ll be transitioning from the offensive in arguments with Republican pals to the defensive. I will be starting this transition in 3 days, as most people aren’t aware that the elected official isn’t actually in any position to oversee the country for 77 days. In 3 days, this country will still be in a world of shit, and many of the ignorant will say “See! I told you Obama wouldn’t change anything for the better!”. It was more fun when I could be on the attack. Maybe I’ll just tell people I voted for Pauly Shore, and I can avoid confrontation all together.

The change that hits me the hardest is that my favorite shirt is going to have to be retired. It is the “Punk Voter” shirt featuring Dubya with the words “Not My President” beneath it. It elicited dirty looks from senior citizens and rednecks, thumbs up from radicals and twenty somethings, and I always feel like a more defiant version of myself. When I wear it, I feel like a rebel and I generally live more on the edge than usual…Ordering a Sex on the beach at the bar instead of a ginger ale. Since I only have 77 days until my shirt is irrelevant, I’m going to get my $15 worth and wear it daily. If that gives me no time to wash it, so be it. It’ll stink as much as these last 4 years have, and Bush supporters around me will experience what I’ve had to put up with for the last 8 years.

Thanks for voting everybody and remember…Change is coming. Maybe a lot of the policies will remain unchanged, but at least we won’t have to see clips of Palin and McCain on SNL every week and the show will fade back into the late night cave without those obnoxious Thursday night episodes.