I envision getting older like the evolutionary chart of man. I know you’ve seen the black sequential silhouette. You start as a young monkey bent over, and as you get older your posture improves only to revert back to the slumping monkey at the end. I won’t tell you where on the chart I feel at this moment, but bananas do qualify as soft food right?

Reaching and surpassing the age of fifty is as disheartening as trying to impress a beautiful girl with a Chevy Nova with tattered seats. Who am I kidding? The best part of getting to my age is you no longer care about the peer pressure. Who cares if my car looks like it took a direct hit from a roadside bomb in Fallujah. It’s got heat, air conditioning, and it’s reliable. When the smoke from the tail pipe resembles a mushroom cloud as I get out, I simply tell people my second job is bee keeping. They seem to understand with an approving nod.

Funny about driving a rent-a-wreck, I tend to drive alone. My kids always slump down in the seats in case one of their friends see them in my goober mobile. I’ve decided to keep it because it offers me some financial benefits! Now when we visit, they unanimously offer to take us everywhere in their vehicles and we spend their gas.

I love reaching the age where my years of parental coaching is beginning to pay off. I have been to each of my children’s new homes and before I can even leave the room, they yell at me to switch the light off. Imagine all the years of my training them has finally prompted them to take shorter showers, leave all the lights off, while setting the thermostat beyond anyone’s comfort level. Who would have guessed?

The other night while visiting our son, he promised us dinner out. “It’s the least I can do”, he emphasized. We were impressed with his new found independence and riches. I’m glad we didn’t get over dressed; the Taco Bell was unusually crowded.

I do find it funny that my children have become more thrifty than they ever allowed me to be. When they were teens, everything I purchased seemed never to meet their expectations. Now I visit my youngest son’s new apartment, he doesn’t have two glasses that match, the curtains look like they came from a feed store, and the toilet paper feels like rice paper with sand woven into the fibers.

Christmas will be easy this year for him. All I need to buy is a jumbo package of Charmin, some fall-out shelter drapes, and a stack of paper cups from the hotel chain I always stay. I know it will have the name on them, but at least he’ll have a matching set.

He can’t be too upset with my generosity. It’s only a matter of time before the evolution chart has me dragging my knuckles back in the dirt and they’ll be saying I’ve gone bananas. Maybe the evolution chart may have some degree of realism after all.