May 27th, 2022Just sayin’…

IT’S a funny thing getting older. Just the other day I was joking with Kyle that he used to be ripped and now he’s more just Van Winkled, or Van Wrinkled. Actually he’s in great shape, thanks to interval fasting and refusing to have a drink until 6pm. I am more of a “must be 5pm somewhere in the world” kind of a woman.

But I think everyone has an age that they feel in their mind. I think I am at about 35. Just over 20 years younger than the calendar, or my body, would tell me. And Kyle would probably say about the same – but then there are the “old man” habits he is slowly embracing.
For example we are now the proud owners of a key cupboard. A lockable metal black box with lots of keys inside, all carefully labelled and colour coded. Who does this? In the old days we would just hang keys anywhere and hope we could find them again. Or spend quite some time trying different keys until we hit pay dirt. Now you just go to the key cupboard and select the right key from its label. Seems very “old man” to me but it makes Kyle very happy. The only thing I want to know is where the key to the key cupboard goes once it is locked. No point leaving it in the lock, nothing safe about that, but what if you lose that key? Then you have no keys. Not being sexist, well I guess I am, but I reckon a man made this box.
Getting older also means more tests and I am absolutely sure a man made the mammogram machine. What woman in their right mind would create a machine whose sole purpose is to squash a breast until it’s pretty much a pancake? And then give the machine one more squeeze. And honestly, the instructions. Move forward, left arm up, right arm down, bum back, chest forward, chin up, shoulder to the left, look up…It’s like a vertical game of twister. I bet if for every woman they then drag a man into the room and check his testicles in the same way, there would be a new testing regime in no time.
I guess one good thing about growing older is doing it pretty much together – as in being roughly the same age. It would be really hard to have a much younger partner with them trim, taut and terrific, while you were more saggy, sloth-like and scary. A friend of my mum’s married a bloke 15 years older than her when she was in her early 20s. “It’s OK when you are young,” she would say, “and being with an older man can be quite exciting,” she would add, “but when you are 70 and they are 85, it’s not that much fun anymore,” she would finish, with a sigh.
Hmmm. It’s not just Kyle doing “old man” things. We just had lunch with a bloke doing some work at our place and they both talked about how great traveller pies are. I have included a photo so you don’t have to imagine this but also a short explanation as well. You’re welcome. Read below.

This is a long pie, rather then round, which fits into your hand much better than a normal round pie, so you can drive safely. WTAF? Are they 90? And aren’t sausage rolls already perfectly designed for drivers? The world has gone mad.
And I do recall, back in the day, when we met on Hamilton Island, Kyle being more carefree and very keen to take part in a “how many people can you fit in and on a golf buggy” competition. Turned out to be 12. Not safe at all, but fun at the time. And then we all had to run very fast to avoid the island police because fun like this was a NBO offence. That’s Next Boat Out. But even that was OK. I know people who had t-shirts made proudly proclaiming “I was NBO’d off Hamilton Island”. In the end, after only three months of working on the island we moved to the Gold Coast. And perhaps that was the start of growing older. You see, the reason we moved was that we had consciously coupled up and if you are working on a tropical island it’s more of a singles life. Maybe that’s when the Van Wrinkles started? Just sayin’…