Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Old Men Aging Well


Five of us old guys at a nice German restaurant had just finished a good dinner. The fraulein, dressed for effect, was showing us a dessert tray. One of us said "Look at that!" and all of us looked at the desserts rather than at the amply endowed waitress. After we drooled and ordered no-sugar, low-fat cheesecake, another said "Yeah, you can get the dessert a lot cheaper than the girl."



The youngest old guy had just told us that he's just gone through a divorce in which he lost pretty near everything. My own divorce drove me insane and took a couple of years to recover.

Pitiful, but expected... both about the dessert versus girl and about the divorce settlement. This is the South, where the judges are biased. One urban legend goes that the feds, a few years ago, entrapped a judge in chambers after a divorce ruling with a wired undercover policewoman on her knees and his legs spread open for payment. And (some) women start preparations for divorce before they marry, believing of marriage as a very good tax-exempt long-term capital gains investment. Sex has always been a currency for (some) women. Men will throw away their whole lives and their careers for sex.

What a sad state of affairs.

The solution: Some of us finally learned to order dessert. That is a decision that we can still make that will prevent a future problem.

OK, solved that problem, let's go on to another.

None of us old men had a good solution to the economy. What's a solution to the plundering of this country by some politicians, bankers and CEOs working in cahoots? We must be insane to let them get away with this, we can't just order dessert to solve it, and it will take a lot more than a couple of years to recover... it will take throwing more bums out by electing fiscally responsible people. And where can we find responsible professional politicians? WHY does anyone want to run for office? What's his gain? Anyone who will do whatever you have to do to get elected shouldn't be allowed to run for office.

How about something like jury duty or military service draft? Twenty-five years after college graduation you are inducted into office... compulsory... for one term. This may be even better than term limits, and/or Tea Party. Heck, let's try something different... what we are doing now is not working.

You think about it while I go to the gym and work out that cheesecake.

- text © 2011 by Willy

No comments: