Older Than I've Ever Been

I took Simon to the vet this morning because he’s been limping around and generally looking mopey. He turned eleven last month and he’s growing skin tags (bonus extra dogginess!) and generally slowing up. But I knew something was actually wrong when Luna, as she is wont to do, started humping his face and Simon protested.

It turns out, he’s just getting old and achey. We got him all hepped up on goofballs, and it seems to be working.

Once a week in the mail, I get a reminder of my mortality. Sometime in my twenties, I was placed on a mailing list for demographic a generation or more older than me. The AARP wanted me so bad. So bad. They had a lot to offer, they told me. I could be part of this exclusive club, they suggested. There is a magazine, they tempted.

Since then, I’ve aged, and now, according to the list, I’m past the 55 and older (or “better” as some of the literature says) demographic and well into what Simon’s experiencing. I’m getting a lot of postcards. One for Life Alert. One for a burial plot. Another for one of those snazzy looking wheelchair scooters and yet another for a chair that springs my ass up into a standing position. Ones for supplements, supplemental insurance, orthopedic items. I could go on.

I wonder what will happen first: If I’ll actually age into needing these services, or if I’ll be knocked off the list as an implausibly spry 120-year-old. Life is short, but direct mail lists last forever.