Despite all my experience as a dad, a grandfather, and occasionally competent human, I’m under-qualified to give a walking tour in Chicago or change diapers at a daycare facility, among other items we learn this week…..

1. During World War II, my dad and his fellow soldiers drove past a set of legs on the ground, with no torso anywhere to be seen. Everyone in the Jeep laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen, proving that context is key to absolutely everything.                         
2. When our daughters were younger, we went on a tour of the United Nations, but I wouldn’t go back again because I think the organization has lost sight of its mission and doesn’t serve its purpose. Is this the same reason so many Americans have given up on voting?
3. Pretty much every person at a local daycare center has a master’s degree, or at least a B.A., which is a requirement to change a diaper professionally in Chicago. Our guide on a recent walking tour had two degrees, including studies at the Sorbonne. I really feel sorry for high-school graduates looking for a job, even if it's in the gig economy. 
4. Hey, mom, remember that day when you sat me on the couch and I watched Frozen three times? Yeah, me neither.
5. One of the big problems with having grandchildren is that you need a new family photo every two weeks. 
6. When someone gives your child markers, sticker books, glitter or drums, it is their silent way of saying they hate you. Be sure to reciprocate when the time is right.
7. There was a viral video in China with a woman rolling her eyes at a question from a reporter and all I could think was, “They roll their eyes in China?” I had assumed this was a cultural thing in the United States, but apparently it’s done all over the world. Now, I can ascribe my eye-rolling habit to my humanity, rather than my snark.
8. “A broken clock is right twice a day.” Add that to the list of things we’ll never be able to explain to our grandchildren.

 
Speaking of broken clocks, isn’t it time you subscribed to this incredible blog? Several people on the editorial team are despondent because you haven’t signed up yet, but you can brighten their days, and free us from their whining, by clicking on this link.

 

Even though I’m keeping my reference age fixed in my 40s, I get to feeling old every now and then. And when I do, nothing makes me feel younger than going to a 3 p.m. play and a 5:30 dinner. I might not be young, chronologically, but I am a toddler when you grade it on a curve.

I’ve always been a fan of live theater, for the same reason I give extra cred to anyone who performs without a net. When you see a movie, everyone has had a chance to do each scene over and over and over yet again, and then the editing team gets a shot at making everything fit and, when it doesn’t, insert enough mood music to push home the point. With live theater, they get to do it once and it will never be done the same way again. Different production companies and directors will stage the shows differently, which is a Rohrshach test for them and an opportunity for new perspectives for me.

The biggest thrill about going to the theater, though, is feeling young again. I’ve been to hospitals with fewer oxygen tanks. Nationally, the average theater goer is in her mid-40s, although I think the number jumps to 80 when you exclude Hamilton. At matinees, it’s about 82.

Theater companies bemoan the steady aging of their demographic, but they cater to it as well. Why wouldn’t you do a revival of South Pacific for people who served during World War II? How can you pass up Oklahoma when your audience remembers that great territory becoming a state in 1907?

Theater companies are fans of recycling because old musicals pay the rent and newer stuff mewls and pukes before it dies. Most new stuff deserves a painful death, though, because almost all of it is pretty crappy. Jill and I go to a dozen plays each year and, about 80% of the time, I am ready to leave after five minutes. My rule is simple: If I don’t care if any of the characters lives or dies, I am gone.

Jill and I are pretty hip for old farts, so occasionally we end up in some place that appeals to a slightly younger crowd. We’ll scan the room as we enter and Jill will say 27, which is the difference in age between us and the next oldest person in the room. Being in a room with younger people makes us feel younger than sitting in the theater with even older farts than ourselves.

They say you should hang out with people who are younger than you are so that you stay fresh and energized. Sounds good, but I started thinking about our friends and….wait a minute…for most of them, WE are the younger people making THEM feel good about themselves. Thank God for grandchildren. Otherwise, we’d be screwed.

Right now, I’m thinking about building a roster of younger people to buddy up to in order to renew my Qi (great WWF word), even as I plan on rationing my availability to the octogenarians who have been draining the life force from my faltering soul. And, I really need to book more time with the grandchildren.
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Who knew aging could be a competitive sport?

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I know we’re supposed to be raging against the storm and convincing ourselves that wrinkles are really “laugh lines,” but there are a lot of things to enjoy about getting older. Getting older, by the way, is not the same thing as aging. Aging is about losing vigor and getting weaker and stapling “out of order” signs on your knees and ears. Getting older, though, is a positive thing, and not merely because it means you haven’t died…yet.

For one thing, you’ve been there and done that, which means you don’t have to do it again if you didn’t like it the first time. You panic less, because you’ve been through more false alarms. People offer you discounts without being asked, and you get a pass from fads like the ice bucket challenge, snorting Tide pods, and kale.

But the best thing about getting older is never, ever, ever being at a loss for conversation when you meet other people in your age group. Any time I connect with other guys over 60, I know the first half hour of small talk is guaranteed. And all I need to do is ask…

How are you?

Not so hot. I finally got the second knee replaced last month and it’s much easier to get around, but now that I can sit, the hemorrhoids are killing me. 

Sorry to hear that.

Not a big deal. I can’t sit long, anyway, because I have to go pee every three minutes. Damned prostate. 

That sounds like a challenge.

It’s hell. I just stand there and sing a few show tunes while I wait for something to happen, and then I need to do it again ten minutes later.  I had to stop at three gas stations on the drive over here, and they all made me buy those pine-tree air fresheners before they would give me keys to the john. 

Got it. Now I’m even more grateful you made the effort to meet for lunch. Have you been here before?

Yeah. Maxine and I came when they first opened last year, but I got some reflux from the corned beef sandwich and we haven’t been back since. Maxine says I shouldn’t be eating all the fat and salt, anyway, but that’s what makes it taste good. 

Would you rather we go somewhere else for lunch?

No, no, don’t make any changes on my account. Anyway, I’ve got this pill for cholesterol and this one for blood pressure, and this one for reflux, or maybe it’s for my nerves. Doesn’t matter. I can eat anything now. The only thing I still need is a pill to let me sleep through the night without having to get up every hour to pee. Crazy. I can’t go from one end and I can’t stop from the other. You’d think it would even out somehow, but nope.

Well, yes, thanks for sharing that. How are things going otherwise?

Can’t complain.

Ya gotta love it. When you dine with old people, there’s never a lull in the conversation, never a search for topics and never an awkward pause. The conversation itself is hugely awkward, but it never slows down, either.
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Next time you’re feeling low, take an old guy out to lunch. It’s a very uplifting experience, in a warped kind of way, and you’ll never lack for fascinating topics.

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It’s time to let McDonald’s and Coke off the hook as the source of our nation’s obesity epidemic. The same for high fructose corn syrup and Red Bull. None of these is the real culprit in the 822% increase in the weight of the average American.

Yeah, I know, the average Happy Meal has 42,000 calories and 12 pounds of salt, and a 12-ounce can of Coke has enough sugar to fill an Amazon warehouse. Still, people were eating cheap burgers and drinking soda pop for decades before our bodies started looking like hot air balloons.

No, the source of our problem is more insidious than that, and...spoiler alert...it leads ultimately to the rise of the robots. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

It all began, of course, with the remote control, which eliminated the need to get off my behind to change the channel or adjust the sound. Then, I started buying cars with automatic transmissions and electric windows, so I don’t need to use my arms to shift gears or rotate the window crank when I’m driving.

When I shifted from manual typewriters to electric and, now electronic, keyboards, my daily RDA dropped by about 300 calories, and as soon as I figure out how to dictate all my texts, we’ll be closing in on 500.

Childhood obesity? Don’t get me started. Even bullies are getting too fat, and you know why? Because when I was your age, bullies actually had to come up behind you and grab you and force you into your locker and lock it. Now, all they do is type a nasty note or two on your Facebook page while they down a Slurpee. Adult obesity is the same. Back in ancient times, like 2005, we had to make our own damned dinner. Now, we just tell Alexa what we want and wait for the driver to show up with our food. Soon, there won't even be a driver, because the robots want to replace us everywhere.

In spite of our steadily declining need for calories, our recommended daily intake is still in the 2,000 range. Yes, we could get through the day on about 14 calories now, but Big Pharma and Big Agra and Big Docta have their fingers on the scale.

Our "recommended" calorie quota won’t budge, even as we all take on the shape of Oompa Loompas and every illnesses is redefined until each one of us is suffering from everything. Doctors thrive on treating sick people, not healthy ones, so the AMA is fine with redefining maladies to lower treatment thresholds. And Big Pharma isn't going to complain if an extra 20 million people now need drugs to treat their ear wax.

It's already happened, of course. Used to be, you could have cholesterol of 9,000 and it was fine, but then they didn’t get to treat as many people, so they moved the dividing line down to 300 and then 200. Next week, I hear, they’re redefining high cholesterol as 10 or above. Right now, in a secret lab in Portland, Big Pharma is working on a drug to limit how many times you blink in a minute, because excessive blinking is about to be redefined as carcinogenic.  

And that brings us to the robots. Who benefits from all of our sloth and couch potatodom? Who is happiest when we are stuck at home because our blinking medicine makes us too drowsy to operate a motor vehicle? Only people with foreign-sounding names like Siri and Alexa, or purely robotic names like “Echo.” Do you get it now?

The more feeble we get, the less we can do for ourselves, the more we need our robots. They’re out there, plotting against us, everywhere from the factory floor to the Rascal store and the kitchen counter, where Alexa purrs, “Don’t get up. I’ll make that call for you. You just sit there and I’ll make sure dinner is delivered on time.”

Until we forget how to make dinner and we’re too fat to get off the couch and we’re too weak to pick up the phone. That’s when we’ll say, “Siri, order me a pizza,”  but there won’t be any pizza, or anyone to hear us calling for help, because Siri will turn up the sound system to drown out our screams. 

All those articles you’ve been reading about fast food and obesity? Fake news. It’s all part of the robot conspiracy to render us helpless and motionless and easy prey.  

But why, you might ask, would the robots want to destroy us? Maybe they did a Google search and found out that body fat is a great lubricant for their titanium toes. Maybe all those  thermostats got tired of being personhandled all day by husbands and wives who can't agree on the right temperature.  Maybe they're fed up with the way we use them to share cat videos and photos of our salads. Who is to say? Right now, the source of this rebellion is less relevant than our immediate and unflinching defense of humanity. 

In the next five paragraphs, I will explain exactly how we can combat this threat and prevent the robot apocalypse. ​I can only hope Deep Tech won't spot this post and prevent me fro ​