by Red Green
THINGS YOU CAN NOW SAY
As the years go by, an unwritten law allows you privileges that you’ve never had before. While you may not be able to do as many things as you used to, you can now say more stuff than you ever could. Here is a list of expressions that are acceptable once you hit mid-life and beyond:
• These days, there’s too much sex in everything. Except my life.
• Tell the waiter to bring me something soft.
• You’re both sitting in my chair.
• We were the first family on our street to have a television.
• We were the first family on our street to have a radio.
• We were the first family on our street.
THE RULE OF THUMB
I’ve been a husband for most of my adult life, and certainly for all of my mature adult life, and I’ve watched the marriage evolve over that period of time. I’ve found that the average married woman regards her husband as some strange life form who means well but basically doesn’t get it. He becomes an obstacle to a quiet, easy, stress-free life. Someone who has to be cajoled and coaxed and tricked into doing things like shopping or having the relatives over.
I’d just like to point out that the role of being the opposition is a valuable one that is reflected in court procedures and parliamentary government. Husbands are the opposable thumbs of relationships. There is an implied mutual dependency, as the contrary positions of husband and wife make both stronger and more effective. Without husbands, the wives would simply be four fingers waving in the breeze, and without wives, husbands would just be a thumb hitchhiking its way through life.
HOW TO MAKE A TOBOGGAN
If you’re like me, you have more than once found yourself driving down the highway when all of a sudden your car hood flies up and blows off. Don’t you hate that? Probably my own fault for closing the hood with the same piece of duct tape over and over. But let me tell you, it’s worth going back to get that hood, even if you have to apologize to the people at the bus stop. That hood can save you thirty bucks come Christmas, because with a little skill and ingenuity—and some rope—you can turn it into a toboggan.
The first step is to put the rope through the front of the hood and tie it to something so it doesn’t flop around when you’re coming down the hill. Or get the fat kid to sit on it.
Now, you don’t just want to ride your hood/toboggan by sitting down on the bare metal. You need to be a little higher so you can see what’s up ahead, ’cause there’s nothing worse than screaming down a farmer’s hill and getting hit in the face with a frozen trail treat.
Remove the front seat from a former friend’s car (he shouldn’t be driving in winter anyway) and strap it to the inverted hood with duct tape. Now go out and have yourself some fun. And make sure you really enjoy that first run, because this unit comes in at around four hundred pounds, and you may not be able to convince your wife to drag it back up the hill.
HOW TO AVOID BEING REMINDED OF YOUR AGE
You’ve taken steps so you won’t be reminded that you’re getting older. You avoid mirrors and brightly lit rooms and anyone who knows your true age, but there are physical activities you should also stay away from. If you want to maintain that healthy, young self-image, pay attention to the following:
• If you drop something, don’t bend over. If you can’t pick it up with your toes, write it off.
• Don’t run. People will forgive your tardiness much more readily than your red face, your heavy breathing, or the fact that your stomach is still bouncing.
• Don’t get into any vehicle that’s short enough for you to see over. You may never get out.
• Don’t wear tight clothing or stand in the wind. Keep your shape a mystery.
• Don’t dance. You don’t know any modern steps, you can’t hear the music all that well, and songs are a lot longer than they used to be.
THERE’S A REASON YOU’RE OUT OF TOUCH
I saw another “long-lost brother reunion” thing on one of those talk shows for people who tell their whole family to shut up so they can watch a television program on communicating. On this particular episode, a brother and sister were brought back together after twenty years of no contact. Now, it was a touching scene when they hugged each other and shed a tear or two, but I had a sense that this was all a huge invasion of privacy.
We’ve got the Internet and the phone book and there are only ever six degrees of separation, so I have to believe that any two people who want to find each other do. When you see a reunion, that can only mean the person who wanted to do the finding did a way better job than the person who wanted to do the hiding. It looks good for a few minutes on television, but an hour later, I’ll bet somebody is saying, “By the way, you still owe me money/an apology/both.”
So if there’s anybody out there trying to reunite with somebody, accept that the reason you can’t find the person is because he or she doesn’t want to meet you halfway. Focus instead on the people who’ve been with you all the way along. Unless you owe them money or an apology or both.
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
My wife bought a computer desk this week in the form of two boxes sticking out of the car trunk, each of which outweighed me. I wrestled them into the living room and tried to open the boxes carefully, but I’m not at my best when something heavy has just fallen on my foot. Inside were a couple of dozen slabs of fake wood, five bags of hardware, and a twenty-seven-page instruction manual. I learned to read manuals last summer after I assembled what I thought was a five-speed bicycle and turned out to be a wheelbarrow. Three days and a bunch of repeated steps later, the desk was together.
So now I’m thinking, “What if we don’t like it and want to take it back?” I’ve already scratched it and wrecked the box, and I’d have to take it apart just to get it into the car. And it struck me then that unassembled furniture is like a marriage. It may not be perfect, but when you think about the hassle of taking it back, you stick it in the corner and try not to look at it too closely.
YOUR RIDE ENDS HERE
We have laws in this country that say once you reach the age of eighty, you have to have a driver’s test every year. A lot of men dread it because they know that’ll be the end of their driving career. The truth is, most driving careers should end long before they get that far. I see middle-aged people who squinted at the menu in a restaurant walk to their cars and drive home. Right now, the cops pull you over for spot checks to catch drunk drivers and unsafe vehicles, but if the program was expanded to include surprise driving tests, a lot of us would be taking the bus.
Now, I’m not saying you eighty-year-olds are being picked on. I agree you don’t drive any worse than the rest of us. But you have been getting away with it for a lot longer. So stop dreading the driver’s test. It may give you your best chance to reach eighty-one.
HOW TO TELL IF YOU’VE LOST YOUR PLACE IN THE FOOD CHAIN
We all know we need to save the planet and protect the animals and all that stuff, but once in a while, we also need to remind ourselves of the various priority levels of plant and animal life. Here are a few signs that something is out of whack with nature’s pecking order:
• The dog has eaten your lunch.
• You’re sleeping on the couch because the cat is on your pillow.
• You can’t take a vacation because you can’t find anyone to feed the fish.
• You’re being fined by the parks department because you allowed a tree to fall on your home.
• You saved so much heating fuel last winter that you contracted pneumonia in the comfort of your own family room.
• You can’t go out to a friend’s house because your kids have the car.
HE’S GOT YOUR STUPIDITY
I was talking to some friends whose son just did something really stupid. To me that just proves he’s not adopted, but they’re upset about it.
Now, I know children can get into serious problems as they’re growing up, but I think the mistakes
and harmless goofy things are just as important. Those foolish mistakes are a great learning experience for them, and it’s also a comfort for a parent to know he’s not the only goofball in the family. Yes, you want your kids to be successful, but you don’t want them to be too successful. It’s embarrassing to have a brilliant daughter or a son who’s a millionaire. It makes you look like a loser because you couldn’t do what she or he did. Or worse yet, it implies that your wife’s genes are the ones responsible for your kid’s success.
AVOID THE YOUNG
My nephew was complaining to me the other day about his part-time job at a fast food place, where he works indoors for $5.80 an hour and all the saturated fat he can stuff into his fanny pack. I was telling him that when I was a kid, I worked as a milkman’s helper out in the freezing cold for a two-dollar bill a day.
He had no idea what I was talking about. He’d never heard of a milkman or seen a two-dollar bill. I’m not even sure he knows what freezing cold is. And I didn’t try to educate him because I’ve been married long enough to know that most things can’t be explained. The person either gets it or he doesn’t. And it’s not his fault. My nephew has just as much trouble trying to tell me what he’s learning in school, or why he likes that music, or how much more hardware he’s planning to attach to his facial features.
The message is that we should all hang out with our own peer groups. The people of our generation are a lot more likely to understand what we’re talking about and forgive us for what we’ve done. I recommend that you marry someone around your same age, work for a boss from your own era, and always give your side of the story to the cop with the grey hair.
STOMACHING EACH OTHER
I’ve been married over thirty years, and when people ask me how you can make a relationship last that long, I tell them you have to marry the right person. I compare it to food. Sure, you may like spicy food once in a while, but over the long haul, you’re better off with meat and potatoes—something that will sustain you over the years without destroying your body. You need to pick a meat-and-potatoes type of partner. And don’t think you can sneak out on occasion for a spicy snack. Your wife can always tell.
WHEN IT’S BETTER NOT TO LAUGH
• When you’re meeting your new boss.
• When the judge asks if you’d been drinking that night.
• The first time you see your girlfriend in a bathing suit.
• When the auditor asks if you declared your full income.
• When someone you’re hoping to inherit money from drops her teeth.
• When you’ve just been threatened by members of a motorcycle gang.
• When someone you’re married to stubs her toe.
• In church or anywhere that nobody else is laughing.
GIVE ME A BIG EMPTY NEST
They say that as you get older and the kids move out, you’re supposed to downsize your house. I don’t want to do that. As I age I want more space, not less. My coordination will be down a notch or two and I’ll probably have a few more pounds on me, so I need generous doorways with lots of clearance. And I won’t be getting out as much as I do now, so the house will be my whole world. I don’t want to live in a world whose four corners I can see from anywhere in the living room.
And when you’re living in one open room, you have to put your projects away all the time—not to mention explaining the paint stains and burn marks to people who don’t understand the handyman mindset. Give me a big house with lots of rooms for my twilight years. Those tiny retirement homes aren’t for me. I may think small, but I live big.
WEATHER WISE: AN ARMCHAIR ALMANAC OF WOODLAND WISDOM
Just because you don’t have access to a radio, a television, or an Environment Canada satellite downlink, that doesn’t mean you have to be at the mercy of the weather. The observant outdoorsperson knows that nature signals approaching trouble, giving those who are weather-wise plenty of time to seek shelter where there’s a big chair, beverages, chips, and a cable sports channel. All you have to do is keep an eye out for the following:
Thunderstorm
Distant: Cicadas stop chirping. Sparrows grow quiet. Thin, wispy clouds that look like shredded tube socks appear. Wolves circle, grow agitated. Ants march in straight lines carrying umbrellas.
Imminent: Wolves seek shelter under your bed. The guy you’re fishing with looks over your shoulder and says, “Uh-oh.” A loud crack! A flash of light! And you wake up in a hospital.
Hailstorm
Ants form into circles. Beavers play poker. Birds grow visibly agitated and are given to unnecessary shoving. Cicadas become verbally abusive.
Snowstorm
Dogs grow nervous and edgy. Squirrels swallow their nuts in fear. Moss seems damp when you stuff it in your pants. Ants start watching NASCAR on television.
Flash Flood
Sparrows stop singing. Ants form into rowing teams. Skunks start wearing life jackets.
Partly Cloudy with Moderate Temperatures and Clearing in the Afternoon
Sparrows stop singing and start rapping. Beavers nervously twiddle their lips. Chickens lay black eggs.
Tornado
Distant: Ants do the hokey-pokey. Cicadas burrow into large hairdos. Dogs grow visibly agitated; cats grow visibly relaxed. Sheep and goats seek shelter in your basement.
Imminent: Low black clouds, high white clouds, and a flying shrub all appear. Cows and horses dig bomb shelters.
Sunny and Clear
Birds fly in circles. Foxes put on suntan lotion. Fish swim upside down. Trees point upward to the sky.
CALL WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART
I was talking to an acquaintance on the phone the other day, and I heard that telltale breakup in his voice that indicated he was getting another call coming in. He ignored it. And then I remembered all the other times people I was talking to got another call and said, “Hang on a minute—I’m getting another call,” and left me to go and answer it.
So now I’ve decided that another person’s response to his call waiting is a pretty good indication of your relationship. If he refuses to take the other call no matter what, you’re solid. If he waits until the other call interrupts several times or tells you he’s expecting an important call and then excuses himself, that’s still okay. But if he jumps at the first chance to bail out of talking to you, that can only mean you have no … Hang on a minute—I’m getting another call.
HOW TO TELL WHEN THEY DON’T LIKE YOU
It’s always good to know where you stand with people, but many of us have difficulty communicating with clarity. So here are a few signs that will tell you when someone really doesn’t like you:
• She refuses to make eye contact. Even when you’re standing on her foot.
• He tries to sell you Amway stuff.
• When you ask him to drive you home from work, he claims he brought the unicycle that day.
• When you talk to her, she looks like she’s having a really big cramp of some kind.
• When he sees you’re the only elevator passenger, he waits for the next one.
• She suggests you run for political office.
THE ART OF STIFLING
There’s really never a good time to yawn, but we middle-aged married men are frequently faced with really, really bad times to yawn. These almost always involve a spouse who’s upset about something we’ve said or done. We know she’s right and we have true remorse, but still, yawns happen. Especially after, say, 8 p.m. Nothing good will happen if you yawn while you’re undergoing behaviour modification. You need to learn how to hide a yawn.
I suggest you stand in front of a mirror and practise clenching your teeth really hard without showing any movement of your facial muscles. This may require weight gain, but you should do whatever you have to. Try turning a yawn into a cough. Sometimes that works. Just make sure your mouth is relatively empty. As a last resort, go with the “lookaway,” where you turn your head at least 97 degrees and run to the window. When y
our wife asks what’s wrong, hold up your hand to buy enough time to complete the yawn and then say you thought you saw a robin or an alien spacecraft or something.
Of course, the best policy is to make your faux pas early enough in the day that the whole discussion takes place well before the Yawning Hour.
HOW TO GO ICE FISHING
Step One
Do this activity in the winter. No kidding.
Step Two
Learn how to hot-wire a snowmobile.
Step Three
Hot-wire a snowmobile and send the least popular guy out on the lake. Chances are, he will sink through the ice and drop like a stone to the bottom. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FISH IN THE RESULTANT HOLE. That’s important. Instead, go to a different lake before the cops arrive and you waste the whole day explaining what happened.
Step Four
Hot-wire a nicer snowmobile and go out onto a safer lake. Hold up a three-foot length of four-inch pipe and stick the bottom end into the ice. Fill the pipe with gasoline and light it. In no time at all, you will have a four-inch hole in the ice. If you park your snowmobile too close to the burning pipe, you will end up with an even bigger hole and an interesting story to tell all the nurses at the burn unit.