Time to Wise Up

Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It is very time consuming – Anonymous

I have been trying to figure out what the advantage is to getting older. I’ve heard a lot about the golden years – which I have been approaching my whole life, only to find I am better at gathering dust than gold. At least the dust I’ve collected never came at any great expense, so that’s a good thing.

Rumor has it that as we get older we become wiser, but I think I lost my capacity to become a wise guy when the dentist removed my wisdom teeth last century. In theory, it was to make more room for the rest of my pearly whites, but I have always suspected the holes left behind provided an escape route for the gray matter that used to live up there betwixt the ears.

Be that as it may, I have made every effort to stay ahead of the brain drain by exercising the three arghs. That’s pirate talk for Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmetic. I have been told that if one does that triad regularly, the squirrel upstairs may be able to get off the wheel and use the passing lane on occasion.

On the other hand, have you ever noticed that Rodin’s Thinker never seems to accomplish anything? He just sits there, but I don’t blame him. Thinking can be quite exhausting. I know; I tried it once.

Now, what were we talking about? Oh, yes, the advantages of growing older.

One benefit often touted is having an opportunity to save one’s doubloons. A national retirement organization has been trying to get me to sign up since I turned 50, promising discounts of one sort or another as a reward for continuing to draw breath past that magical half-century mark. I found I could save even more cash by NOT signing up!

They tried again to get me to enroll when I turned 55 – the double nickel – but like the speed limit of that name, no one ever paid any attention to either of us, so I returned the favor and ignored yet another invitation to save.

Besides, it seems like “saving” is sort of the business I am already in, so maybe I am a walking, talking, living, and breathing aarp (which sounds quite canine of me). Lord knows I should be on a leash at times – it’s not uncommon to find me gadding about town in a dog collar (and goodness knows I’m occasionally in the dog-house).

I do believe, interestingly enough, that we elders are entitled to discounts. The moral reasoning behind this pronouncement is that not only am I old, but I am cheap, too. That should gain me a reduction just on principal (pun intended).

I’m convinced that the best way to save pennies is by not spending them in the first place. I see those wonderful ads on television that offer the world for only three monthly payments of an arm and a leg, and if ordered now, they will throw in a set of steak knives to make the surgery easier. I appreciate their generosity of spirit, but while my flesh is weak, my mind is still tarp as a shack!

That is yet another advantage of growing older; there is more time and space between the mistakes I make. Wisdom lives between the tick and the tock of the clock.

I’ve occasionally been sold a bill of goods, only to discover the reality fell short of the promise. I once bought a set of non-stick cookware invented by someone who’d obviously never seen me cook; oy vey!

I do make unwise decisions, but over the decades I have become wiser. I’ve learned to bide my time while chewing on my options.

The purveyor of the proverbial snake-oil cries out, “He who hesitates is lost.”

My response? “Yea, verily thou shalt looketh before thou leapest!”

I know enough to call a time-out – to think before I act, to “sleep on it” before making a major decision – and I cannot remember ever regretting the delay (but my memory foam could be defective, I’ll grant you).

As for our golden years, I say this: Become the Clock. Find what makes you Tick and embrace it – for Tock is truly cheap in this, our valley.