Inventory....

There are parts of my body I have not seen in years. I am flexible...kind of like an over-starched white dress shirt that maintains my upper torso erection. Bend but not break is an ideal. I've lost a lot of those over time.  But that's okay. Change comes with age...and I refuse to be a whiner. My dad spoke of a fellow he drank with from time to time...a man a little bit older...who would suck the joy from the room as soon as he opened his mouth. They were not friends. Just bar stool neighbors. Dad explained that this man would begin to complain about every pain in every body part as soon as he sat down. And my dad was not there to relive this man's pain...he was there to forget his own. One day, finally, after weeks of trying to seem like a good listener, and neighbor, weeks of complaints, he asked the man, bluntly, "How old are you?" "Seventy-five," he said. "So, what the hell do you expect??" He never sat next to my dad again.