Eureka! I Have Lost It (Cigar Smoke 11-05-09)

I would like to write about something young and vital, but I forgot what youth is. I think it was a time when most of your body parts still worked, and you wished they wouldn’t. I’m not sure what that means, either.

As you all well know by now, and are sick of hearing about, I am now 68 years old. But I am a vibrant, virile 68. Many times people will come up to me and say, “You look so vibrant and virile you could pass for a man of 67.” And I just nod my head and tip my imaginary hat with a young vigor of, maybe, a man of 66.

Anyway, the other day I had just gotten out of the shower, looked at myself in the mirror, flexed my arm muscles and scrunched my rippling abs, and said, “You look like a man of 65.” So I put on my slippers and went into the bedroom to get dressed. And I finish getting dressed, except for my shoes. I can’t find one of my shoes.

Now, I am usually kind of a neat-nik. Some might even say I am an anally retentive piece of human garbage who continually spoils things by trying to always be better than others. Well, what can I say? I am better than all you sloppy losers. I like being neat. I like being orderly. I like being not liked.

But I have to admit that in one area of life I am not neat and orderly. My dresser is always full of T-shirts and pants and sweat suits and jackets, and next to my dresser on the floor are at least five pairs of shoes. Regular shoes, tennis shoes, loafers, slippers. All turned over in a jumbled mess. If I saw this disaster at your house, I would look down on you and know I was better than you.

Hold it a second. I think I am having a senior moment. I can’t remember why I am writing this column. Oh yeah, I remember now. I couldn’t find one of my shoes. I am all dressed and I am looking for my black loafers. I can only find one of them. I go through the pile on the floor again. Not there. I then go into the closet thinking I may have actually put them where they are supposed to be. Thank God, they weren’t there. I go back to the pile and actually get down on all fours. I think I may have accidentally pushed one of the shoes under the dresser. Nope. No missing shoe there. Just dead spiders, rat droppings, toxic dust bunnies and M&M wrappers.

And then, while I am down on all fours, I had an epiphany. (When I was younger I used to know what that meant.) All of a sudden it came to me that I had seen only one of my slippers, too. Yes, on my crawling searches I had seen only one black loafer and only one tan slipper. And I thought to myself, “Self, that is damn peculiar. What are the odds of losing one shoe for two pairs, at the same time?” And I answered, “Self, for a 68-year-old piece of senile shit, you rock.”

So I get up off of all fours and I am standing there in my bedroom, all alone, and I say to my one rapt listener (me), I know where my other shoe is. And I exclaim, “Eureka, I have found it!” And I look down at my feet and tears come to my eyes. I have found both of my missing shoes. On my left foot is my black loafer and on my right foot is my tan slipper. And at this moment I realize that I have experienced an official senior moment. I really cannot believe I was actually wearing two different-colored shoes at the same time for at least a half a day. The night before I had gotten into my robe at around 7 o’clock and had gone back out to the den to watch television and pass on words of wisdom to Marge. I sat there on the couch for four hours and I had my feet up on the table and I never once saw that I had on two different-colored shoes! I never saw it.

And I went outside and had a cigar and put my damn feet up again on a damn end table and I smoked a whole damn cigar and I looked right down at my one tan slipper and my one black loafer for a half hour and I blew smoke rings up their little shoe nostrils and I never saw them!

So I go back inside to relate this Eureka moment to Marge, who has been known to have a few senior moments of her own, her being a much older individual than I am. She’s 69. Yeah, she’s a cradle robber. I say, “Margie Pargie, I have something to tell you.” And she says, “I know your first name is Poopsie, but what is your last name again?” I say, “Whoopsie. It’s Poopsie Whoopsie.” And before I can say anything else, she falls asleep on the couch and her Kindle falls to the floor.

At first I was kind of pissed off that I couldn’t tell her about my “Eureka!” senior moment, but it actually worked out pretty well — because by then I had forgotten what it was.