Growing Old Not So Gracefully

Ol' Dutch is soon to have another birthday and even though you all will want to shower me with gifts and cards containing money, my contract with America prohibits such a show of love and respect.

The problem with accepting gifts is that one thing leads to another and the next thing you know someone wants a favor such as the directions to my secret fishing hole or my good luck shirt complete with stains, tears and odors.

Aging seems to be going around a lot lately in my circles and it appears that it is a tad better than the alternative although the latter has yet to be explored. Now Ol' Dutch being the highly evolved observant creature he is has started to notice some frightening things about getting old.

One has only to watch a dog grow old to realize that changes are going to occur and slowing down is part of that process. Those things are hard to swallow and some are just not kosher.

For one thing, what is the deal with hair growing out of my nose? Now I don’t mean the stray hair that hang out of my nose but the ones that somehow decide that popping out on the surface is attractive? 

At least I have Trixie around to point out the offending addition to my wardrobe and it can thereby be eliminated but some men who evidently are married to farsighted women go around with a teeming forest of hairs like a unicorn in a fairy tale.

The same goes for our ears. A man who cannot sprout a hair on his cue ball bald head will grow a crop of tangled ear muffs coming out of his ears in seemingly endless quantities. And all these at a time in life when he really has about given up on being outdoors in the cold weather. These things would have come in handy earlier in life when Ol' Dutch was walking trains in a blizzard.

And, as far as I can tell, the pig bristles that come shooting out of our eyebrows is only good for making a boar bristle brush, which some unsuspecting woman will pay Fuller Brush Company $104 for the privilege of owning.  

Another strange occurrence is the presence of a bump. Now I am not talking about the kind that requires a trip to the doctor for surgical excision but the small bumps and spots that suddenly arise on my normally pristine baby soft skin. 

Nothing disturbs sleep more than just before heavenly slumber takes its hold on my overactive imagination Ol' Dutch finds a bump somewhere on his arm. 

This requires rising from my bed and going to look in the mirror to see what strange thing has decided to play a trick on me again.

I guess it’s all part of growing older and seeing age spots suddenly appear at least has one positive attribute. Trixie can play connect the dots with her Bingo dabber and may create a salable masterpiece making us rich beyond our wildest dreams. I wonder if that’s how Picasso got started?