Please, God, I'm too young to be Woody Allen by Todd Foltz
They say everything goes with age. Your hairline recedes as your waistline expands, your hearing dims as those around you begin to speak more softly and your vision blurs as the world about you starts moving faster.
I can accept that. After all, with age comes the wisdom that reminds you that your long hair, tight tummy and eagle eyes only got you into more trouble than you knew how to get out of at the time.
But something's happening to me that's really starting to make me nervous: I think I'm losing my sense of humor. Sure, I still have the long hair and the moderately tight stomach, but I don't seem to be making the young ladies laugh as much as I did even a year ago.
And I've only just turned 27.
Granted, the young ladies don't throw as many rotten vegetables at me as they used to, either, so there's some good news But given the choice between thrown vegetables and a few chuckles, and blank stares and awkward silences, I'll take the former pair any day. I need the vitamins in my diet.
The thing is, I don't feel any less funny than I used to be. I still look on the world from the same twisted viewpoint. OK, OK, I don't drink anymore, and I like to leave the nightclubs now about the time everyone else is arriving, and I guess I haven't talked anyone into skinny-dipping for a month or two.
But that doesn't make me less fun, gosh darn it. It makes me a LOT less fun.
Ack. I've become my parents. Only earlier in life than they did.
Nowhere have I read that humor fades as we grow older. Sure, we might get a little testier as each decade rolls around. My 80-year-old grandma, God bless her, is a bit more persnickety now than she was at 70, which is to say, unfortunately, that she's still a hell of a lot nicer than her long-haired grandson. But she still can crack jokes that brings a smile to my mind, if not to my face.
But not me.
Nope. I make a joke nowadays, and people look at me like I'm Tom Arnold at an awards show. And these aren't nameless, faceless television viewers. These are important people people I want to see naked!
All right, I'll admit it. What has me so worked up is a young woman I happen to fancy. She makes me feel about as funny as Don Rickles in a tutu. Dark-haired, slender and wearing more piercings under her clothes than I have fingers, this young woman is downright sieve-like. Oops. I mean sylph-like.
She's beautiful, and I get the impression that she finds me attractive as well. At least, she calls me every day. But our conversations are boring. I try to make her laugh, and she merely sits on the other end of the line as silent as the grave. It's unnerving. Our conversations are so stilted we ought to put on red, white and blue and work for the circus!
I can't read her. Is she laughing inside? Or am I driving her nuts? Is she thinking, gee, I wish he'd shut up and kiss me? Or is she simply thinking, gee, I wish he'd shut up?
But if she's thinking that, then why does she keep calling me? I don't call people who don't stimulate me intellectually. If they don't make me laugh or at least make me think I don't waste my time. Well, OK, I might hang out with them if there's a chance of nudity, but I certainly wouldn't spend time with them on the phone. At least not until I get a video phone.
Maybe we're just at different points in our lives. She's trying to decide whether she can afford another gold nipple ring AND pay rent this month, and I'm worrying about making my business successful. She's still worried about having experiences, and I'm more interested in how those experiences make her feel.
Yeah, that's it. It's not that I'm boring, but that she's too young to appreciate my sense of humor. She laughs when her dog vomits on the kitchen floor and her roommate slips in it, and I laugh at ... well, come to think of it, that was pretty darn funny.
But there are lots of other things that are funny to me at 27 that weren't when I was 22. Like how smart and sophisticated I thought I was. And there are just as many that aren't as funny anymore, like stripping in the middle of a bar or forgetting what I did the night before.
Not to sound like a car commercial, but why do we have to trade fun for stability? Sleekness for comfortability? Waistlines for wisdom? All-night parties for earning potential?
Well, that's simple. Otherwise we end up with middle-aged men in Speedos.
I just wish the time wasn't so fast approaching that I'm going to have to pack my Speedos away.
On second thought, who cares? I prefer skinny-dipping anyway. Now, if I can just manage to do it without people laughing and pointing. I don't think that would be funny at all.
Hey! What are you grinning at?
Todd Foltz has no problem making old guys with bad teeth laugh. But that's another story.