Donovan Kelly
Crummy But Good Writer with a Lighter Touch
The signs are all around me.
Our wine rack is slowly filling up with prune juice bottles.
My running shoes die of boredom, not exercise.
My tennis racket has filed charges of neglect. So has my wife.
When I’m in the shower, I can’t read the warning label on the shampoo bottle unless I put on my bifocals. When I step out of the shower to get my glasses, I forget why I am standing naked in the bathroom. Should I be drying off or wetting down? Too many mornings I have showered twice because the prune juice has gone right to my head.
Let’s call all these signs of my growing maturity.
Such signs are best ignored. Ignored like my favorite road sign, “Watch Out for Falling Rocks.” What driver has ever bothered to stop and watch for falling rocks? Such signs are just a way for road crews to cover their respective tails. Should something bad happen, like a rock actually fall on a car, the road crew can cluck and say they tried to give us a warning sign.
Double showers, unread shampoo bottles and a growing accumulation of prune juice bottles in the wine rack are the same thing. Warning signs to be ignored.
Meanwhile, the gods have done their duty. They put up all the right signs, covered their holy tails, and should the worst happen, can cluck that they tried to warn us: maturity happens.
But every morning I studiously ignore the signs of growing maturity all around me. I wake, ready to conquer the world, convinced that I’m still a vigorous 30-year-old, one specially blessed with 60 years of experience. I rush out into the day, ignoring the dried up running shoes, out-of-focus shampoo bottles and brown jugs in the wine rack.
And when I come home at night, beaten down by all the world’s falling rocks, the gods just cluck, shake their heads, and mutter, “We tried to warn you. Why do you think we invented male pattern baldness?”
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Don’t tell me if I’m coming or going, whether I should be getting wet or dry. Damn the prune juice bottles! Full speed ahead!
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll stop and read the signs. If I can find my glasses.