Saturday October 17th, 2009 was the day I got old. I was really fifty-five years, three months and a couple days, but up until that day I was still a spring chicken in my demented mind, free of aches and pains, able to leap tall buildings, stop speeding bullets…
So Saturdays are workdays around the house and this one was typical. My duty was to run speaker wires throughout the house so I could listen to my Hendrix LPs from any room any time. Our house is on a raised foundation, stem wall; pre-1933 Long Beach earthquake, unsecured construction. I’ve been under the house many times for different reasons, plumbing, strapping the floor joists to the foundation, general maintenance junk. I always kind of like being down there, it’s an adventure. I pretend I’m Kirby or someone from the TV show Combat! and Sgt. Saunders has sent me down there to wire up a bomb or tap into the kraut’s communication system. Always something noble and important to convince me that dragging my ass through the dirt and cobwebs and rat crap is something that is for the betterment of man.
I haven’t been down there for some time and the last year at work I’ve been pretty complacent physically, a lot of sitting at a desk and not a lot of exercise. I knew I’d added some tonnage recently, my once-a-year funeral clothes were really tight and on the occasion when I’d go past a reflection I was always amused at the fun-house mirror effect but didn’t recognize who was looking back at me… but you know, in my mind’s eye I could still wear the same belt I wore in high school.
Anyways, I’m getting prepped to go under the house. I’ve got on my prized Ferrari overalls and I clear the ivy away from the screen door that is the passageway to the underworld. First thing I encounter is a couple black widows. Little ones. They’re the worst kind because you know there’s a big mother lurking somewhere near, watching you clobber her kids and planning her revenge when you’re at your most vulnerable state, probably tonight while I’m trying to sleep.
I’ve got my suddenly dim flashlight and a staple gun to tack the wires up off the ground and I’ve got my orders from the Sgt., ready to go. Once under the house there is a specific route to follow. There are gas and water lines, sewer lines that go from the floor to who knows where under the soil and old duct-work from an abandoned heating system. You go over to the gas line, shinny underneath and head left, around the drains and you’re in the clear to get to the other side of the house.
For some reason I can’t get under the gas line today. I squeeze under to a point and just stop. My belly is putting such a strain on the line it’s starting to bend. “Maybe I go over the gas line and under the water lines…” I’m thinking; so I try that. That is immediately proven to be wrong so I try under again, amazed there is either so much more dirt here than last year or the pipes have drooped considerably. Now I’m trapped under the gas line. I can’t squirm left or wiggle right and the pipe is looking weak. Suddenly I picture the black widow mother licking her chops and saying, “now I’ve got him” and in a big jolt I free myself from the predicament. I’ve still got my work to do and it looks like a long way to belly crawl to the other side of the house. The flashlight is dimmer now and I have to go completely around the perimeter to avoid these damn pipes and it’s gonna take a long time and the krauts are likely to hear me bitching down there and unload their 8 mm machine guns on me and I may never get out of here.
I get to my destination, wires in tow. I left the stapler way back there so it won’t be the clean job I’d hoped. Actually it’s only a few feet away but I can’t get to it because of this new restricted clearance. I feed the wires up to Deborah, who is patiently waiting in the safety of a well lit room, and I begin my trek around the perimeter to get back to this tiny little passage in the concrete wall that I’ll never get through.
Well I do get out, filthy and paranoid and looking for fang bites on my bare neck and I can’t shake this creepy feeling that being under the house isn’t as idyllic as it used to be and I’m not as nimble or fast thinking as my dull mind perceives it is and, jeez, I must be getting old. Fat and old. Maybe that’s why all the grey hair and skin that’s starting to look like crepe paper. Then I tripped going up the back step to the kitchen, fell and skinned my shin. Although it didn’t hurt, I was sure I must’ve broke my hip. I noticed I get winded easier than I used to and there’s still that old fart looking at me in the kitchen window reflection.
The following Monday I was to jury an art exhibit. There were eighty entries and my job was to whittle the selection down to a reasonable number that the gallery could comfortably hang, maybe forty of fifty, and pick seven award winners. This was a task well suited to my new elderly status, a job where years of exposure to paintings and considerable experience in passing judgment on others would come in handy. I weeded out the crappy, no-effort paintings right away and started on the failed attempts next, followed by the clueless and the downright misled artists who are in need of counseling.
The next week doesn’t offer anything to counter my new status as an old guy. Then Saturday at the gallery I give a little speech and hand out the awards for the exemplary entries. Tim the M.C. had made an impromptu dais for me out of a little step ladder and as I ambled up there, a good twenty inches above all these bright shiny faces with youthful eyes full of hope I realized most of them are over forty and I’m the old guy, some sort of sage on top of a hill to bestow trinkets on the plebeians. This perked me up. Now I’m back to my rightful place above the masses, doing something noble and important, convincing me that dragging my ass through life’s dirt and cobwebs and rat crap may have been something that is for the betterment of man.
