Friday, June 15, 2007

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's.....

When I got back from Boulder I sat down and said, “Tony on July 11th you turn fifty years old. You need to figure out what you want to be when you grow up.”

Well I don’t want to grow up.

First you’re born.

Then you grow up.

Then they stick a camera up your butt.

Then you die.

I don’t want to grow up.

So then I said to myself, “Maybe this is your midlife crisis Tone. You need to take a nap.”

When I woke up I realized that I had been “dreaming” about “worrying” about stuff that only old people think about. Like the following:

Fiber
Anyone named Mitt.
Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil
Hillary Clinton
Erectile Dysfunction
Immigration Reform
Global Warming
Global Cooling
The Globe Trotters
The Communists
Paris Hilton
Gas prices
The end of the Sopranos
My current diet
My annual physical
The future
Death

And that was just one dream.

I was dreaming like an old person.

Where were all the playmates and naked cheerleaders? Where was the Ferrari? Where were the all you can eat buffets? What happened to my dreams?

So I’m totally bummed for a couple of weeks and then I get this in the mail.





So now you know why I haven’t posted anything for a month.

I can’t believe this.

Me.

In the A.A.R.P?

How do these people know I’m turning 50?

Communist bastards.

This has to be a satanic cult.

A.A.R.P.? I have an A.A.R.P. card?

They call it the A.A.R.P. because that’s the sound you make when you first open the envelope it comes in.

“AARP!!!!”

Why do I need to join the A.A.R.P.?

I’m already in the Vons Club.

I never thought that turning the big 5-0 would bug me so much.

But it does.

It really really does.

It’s bad enough that I sound like the “Tin Man” every time I get up from my couch now I have an old person ID card?

Damn.

So I go to their website to find out about the A.A.R.P.

Um…

Maybe this isn’t so bad.

I can get discounts to Disneyland and Sea World and Hertz and Hampton Inns. (I think there’s a law that says old people have to stay at a Hampton Inn or Motel 6)

I can get 50% off an Oregon “scientific” BBQ Thermometer that let’s me monitor my food from a 100 feet away.

They obviously don’t know me that well. I’m never a 100 feet away from my food.

I can get 35% off a GPS device if I’m in the AARP.

How come all old people aren’t buying these things? Maybe then we wouldn’t be reading about these old people wandering off all the time. They should automatically send a GPS with the damn card.

I spent an hour on the website. I can get discounts on everything!!! I finally figured it out. AARP is COSTCO for old people! And it’s all online!!!

I’m starting to think this isn’t such a bad idea.

I start to picture myself coming up to a line of elderly people standing in line waiting for government cheese when I whip out and flash my A.A.R.P. card. “Stand aside peons! Tony Calabrese! I’m in the A.A.R.P.”

I can use this card for everything! I’ll get it laminated and put it in it’s own little separate wallet and keep it in my right front pants pocket next to that plastic squeezy thing old men keep their change in.

Then I’ll whip it out like I’m an FBI agent.

“Tony Calabrese, A.A.R.P.”

I’ll be almost like a secret agent for the elderly.

I could be an old person’s super hero.

A.A.R.P. Man!!! Swooping down with long term health insurance and soft food.

I need a cape.

And a walker that shoots Viagra and Celebrex.

I can still be somebody!!!!

“TONY!!!”

“TONY!!! WAKE UP!!!”

“What?”

“You’re thrashing around in your sleep and yelling Ta da!!!”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“Then you’re an idiot. Where are you going?”

“To the bat cave woman!”

“What?”

“To the bathroom okay?”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“I can’t tell you. I can never reveal my secret identity to my loved ones. I wouldn’t want you to put you in danger.”

“Jesus, why can’t you just go out and buy a Corvette like any other idiot having a midlife crisis? I think you can get a discount on one with that A.A.R.P. card.”

“Maybe I will……maybe I will.”