by Carol Dunn

Created on: December 02, 2008

Youth is wasted on the young.

Old age is not for wimps. You have to deal with things that are not only inconvenient, but downright creepy. For instance, you develop wrinkles in places other people don't want to see. So, if your 70-year-old husband still wears a Speedo, for goodness sake throw it in the trash. Please, I'm begging you. On old bodies, things sag even things you didn't know could sag and things you prayed never would. That tattoo of a rose? It looks like an anteater now, which I guess could be to your advantage in a way, with the "green" movement and all.

Bowel habits start to change, and there must be related changes in your brain, because you want to share this information with family members, friends and total strangers. That, in turn, tends to limit your social circle dramatically. It's a good thing memory starts to fail around this time, so you don't have to feel embarrassed around people you shared bowel stories with. Unfortunately for them, you may choose to share again on the outside chance you missed telling someone.

Joints, muscles and things with long scientific names start to hurt. You bend down to tie your shoes, and then you look around for anything else that needs to be done before you start the long journey to standing upright again.

When I was a kid, I made fun of old people. I never understood what a tragedy aging is until I started turning 50, about three years ago. For thirty years I knew it was happening to other people my age. Being a people-watcher, I had been observing the older generation for years. Old men in Speedo suits, for instance, and old ladies with dyed red hair and smeary lipstick. Haven't we all sworn that would never happen to us? But, ever so slowly, the grim wrinkler moves in and wreaks his havoc. It is a cruel fact of nature that oily skin and acne do not, even for ONE DAY, yield to soft, supple, clear, young-looking skin. And near sighted eyes do not, even for ONE DAY, enable us read a book before we need reading glasses. Wrinkles begin as laugh lines and drift south, taking along your cheeks to form brisket and giving you a neck that looks like it belongs on a turkey. Seeing this in the mirror every morning is about as fun as having your stepson wreck your car driving to the store for cigarettes.

I now know that only a face lift will give us that Christie Brinkley look, and, it's the coward's way out. Who wants to look young anyway? If you're going to get old and feel like hammered whale blubber, you may as well get some benefits from it. When you are wrinkled, people actually start to believe that you know something. Observe the way kids treat their grandparents. "Mommy! Grandma says if I eat my oatmeal I'll grow up big and strong! Isn't that cool?!" Never mind that you've told your kid that same thing so many times it has degenerated into, "You'll eat it, and you'll like it." Grandma is an authority because she's OLD.

Staying young is a hoax perpetrated by magazine ads and late night TV commercials anyway. There is no way to grow old gracefully. Old age is going to catch up with you and slam you to the pavement like Hulk Hogan would, back when he wasn't old. According to the NY Daily News, British jazz singer George Melly once asked Mick Jagger why he has so many wrinkles. "Laugh lines," Jagger said. Melly replied, "Nothing's that funny."

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