OLD FART INSURANCE

    I had a sobering awaking a couple of months ago. Let me start by saying, that I personally have several life insurance policies. One that will cover my home, one to take care of my family and a small one for @deblove_u, who emailed me on Blogster not long ago and sent me some nice pics from her homeland. As strange as it may sound, I also had a policy on my dog, but found out too late it didn‘t cover FedEx trucks.

    Okay, I straying from my ‘sobering awaking.’ It seems that when I turned 65 this year, that ALL my life insurance policies decreased their benefits by 32%!! My car insurance went up $200 a year and my auto mechanic now wants to be paid in advance when he fixes my car……most depressing. It seems that I have been reclassified! I feel like the Grey Spotted Swamp Goat, that’s been placed on the endangered species list, except I’m not protected or worshiped by PETA.

    When I eventually turn 70, my policies will devalue an additional 20%. At that rate, by the time I hit 90, my combined inheritance won’t buy a cheese burger at Wendy’s. If I had to retro-flex my life, (I made that word up), I would have skipped the insurance premiums and bought gold instead. Taking just the total premiums I would have made over the last 20 years, and calibrating for the gold market over those years, I would now have twice the value of all my current policies. Then, unfortunately, when my gizzard finally conks out or I choke on a chicken wing at HOOTER’S, the IRS will then determine how much of that gold wealth will be available to my beneficiaries.

    But, alas….hindsight is about as useless as a condom dispenser at a biker bar. Facts are facts. The older you get, the more expendable you become and eventually a liability. It sucks, but, I’m a realistic pragmatist and I know the government classifies old farts as ‘tax depleted,’ untrainable for combat and unreliable as a voter. But, I know I need to go with the flow and just take life as it comes. In the event I come across a bump in the road, well then, I’ll trip over it and sue the friggin crap out of the county and then bequeath the settlement to my beneficiaries. Payback can be a geriatric bitch.

I really am in good shape as far as life insurance. I just wrote this to throw off the in-laws……..Charlie

  The Times Have Changed

    Wifey and I have worked our asses off all our lives. Raised a litter of well fed kids and helped to groom a passel of grandkids. One of grandma Wifey’s delights has always been to take the grand younguns down to Walmart or Penney’s and buy play clothes for the nose pickers and for the teens, a few tasteless ensembles for school. Those days are over…….

    The way I look at it now, is that it’s like a recycle center. I dump all my leisure suits and bellbottoms into the bins behind the Goodwill and Wifey comes out the front with jeans for the grandkids.  Sad to say, I did see a guy standing on the corner the other day holding a cardboard sign that read, ‘Will consider all offers to work for food’. What was sad, he was wearing my favorite plaid golf pants!

                                                                                                      Charlie

    The Things We’ve Seen….

    At my anthropological age, that’s now measured in decades as well as Super Bowls, I can attest to have seen a friggin lot. I’ve witnessed sights and events that no Play Station gamer will ever match. There are many who have seen unique and often ‘onetime events’ that the others here at Xanga will never witness. Share a few with us.

    I stood by my television on that Friday in November of 1963 as our nation waited moment to moment, to hear if President Kennedy was going to be alright. I’ve stood silent in an Asian jungle and watched the sunrise burn off the night fog. I’ve witnessed horrendous death so close I could hear their final breath. I’ve stared helplessly at starvation, disease, neglect, desolation, hopelessness and greed. I’ve seen the heartache that people endure and the heartache they bring on themselves. I’ve seen love and hate so intense that people killed for both.

    I’ve lived long enough to see and endure twelve presidents and forty-five years of Jerry Lewis telethons. I’ve seen the start of AIDS, as I’ve seen the end of polio. I can remember watching the news when most people didn’t even know where the middle east was! I’ve watched dozens of self-righteous organizations mug our Constitution, and then I’ve seen the flag draped coffins of those who died for it. I’ve seen tycoons profit from the ruin of middleclass citizens and then watched those same millionaires rewarded by a protective government. I’ve watched our borders become a world wide joke and an opportunity for our enemies. I’ve watched the leadership of both political parties become power absorbed and over righteous, and I’ve witnessed the decay of national solidarity because of their propagandas lies.

    I’ve seen a fat woman skateboard, a skinny guy wrestle a hog and a six year old drive a car. I gawked at a man as he devoured 62 hot dogs in ten minutes and I’ve even seen a 200 pound woman chug down an entire pitcher of beer in 30 seconds. I was there to witness the birth of the internet and the death of intellect. I also saw the advent of the cell phone and the sad demise of the family hour.

    I’ve watched me and Wifey get old. Watched my children and now their children take their place in a difficult world. I’ve seen it all….but, maybe not quite all. I still haven’t seem a two headed goat or an honest politician. Snow in June or the Minnesota Vikings win a Super Bowl. I still want to see Big Foot, a Chinese typewriter, the things Clint Eastwood sees and see Congress balance the budget. I would give plenty to see a Native American become President and then I want to see the American people have a national referendum on wars and our military. I need to see the inside of the underground complex where galactic aliens are held captive alone with Jimmy Hoffa in New Mexico. I want to see the end of political correctness and the advancement of personal responsibility, which would be bodacious. But, most of all, I want to see world peace achieved….or maybe a KFC in my neighborhood.  Okay, now share what you’ve seen! 

                                                                                                                                               I’ll be seeing ya, Charlie 

             It Ain’t Your Grandma’s Shawl   

    There’s two subjects in life, that I’m totally and completely ignorant of. One concerns the synaptic responses of the teenage cerebellum and the other is the subject of women’s fashion. Both of these subjects concern mysteries of the mind. This dissertation concerns the abstract and often bizarre world of women’s fashion.

    The 21st century has taken a major downturn as women must now turn to more economic fashions which are available at Walmart, Penney’s discount and Goodwill shops. But, women have always had the finesse to make themselves look good even in burlap. Class is class, regardless of the wrapper.

                                                             Charlie

   TIME FOR A CHANGE

    There are great mysteries and hidden terrors in this world. Big Foots, dragons, vampires, space aliens, werewolves and menopausal women. All of these are truly mysterious and frightening. My blog is about the scariest.

    The first woman to ‘go through the change’, lived about 20,000 years ago as a priestess witch on the Polynesian island of Pause. She was so greatly feared by the warrior natives, that they sacrificed virgin wahines to the great volcano god, Estrogenii each year to placate the witch and to prevent her from decimating the young men of Pause. One day, the men of Pause gathered together to do away with the demoness. They bound her and then carried her up the side of the mighty volcano and once they reached the edge of the suffocating abyss, they tossed the old witch in. Suddenly, she was gone in a hot flash! But, the instant before she vaporized, she screamed out a curse….. “You men will suffer in your aged days….as wives become witches and their minds will daze….this curse will change their life to ash….and you will suffer the witch’s hot flash.”

That’s the history of it. Now the reality of it. Women have continued to suffer the curse to this very day and men have become the sacrifice.

    I remember the day well. Wifey and I went to bed one night and during that sleep cycle, she woke up and began to tear through her human skin to be reborn as Wifezilla!! Her eyes turned pudding yellow and her teeth looked like a lumberjack’s rip saw. Her nose holes extruded a green bubbly substance that gave off a steaming vapor. Her precious hands were now deformed into anemic bear claws and she now had the skin of a dying salmon after dumping it’s eggs. She only emitted low growls and grunts, much like the patrons of a smorgasbord restaurant. If not for my nightly dose of Ambien, I would have had to experienced this transformation in all it’s spectacular eruption along with the cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails!

    When the first rays of the morning sun slithered into our bedroom, my wife had slipped back into her now wrinkled and loose fitting skin and appeared to be somewhat normal, except for the eyes. When I got up from bed to visit the poopie room, I asked her what was for breakfast. She told me we were having a sizzling platter of my entrails topped with my useless reproductive organs and did I want toast with it? I knew something was not quite right as she didn‘t mention coffee. Anyway, I knew her to have a pleasant sense of humor and just let it go by.

    I showered and shaved and then committed a few extra moments to work on my comb over. I then walked back into the bedroom only to find my sweetie pie was still in bed. The covers had been flung to the floor and she now laid there perspiring like an elephant in an attic. She then stared at me with those pudding eyes and within moments I started to cry. I knew I had done something terribly wrong and was now going to paid hell for it. My mind was racing to think of what recent predicament I was going to be chewed out about. “Everything okay, honey?” I whispered.
“Curse your gizzard to the boiling slime pits of hell, you man-goat!” she croaked.

    I had always had a great appreciation of my wife’s natural talent for talking dirty during those delicate moments when I usually needed my libido boosted….but this was different. “Having one of your migraines, hon?” I gently asked. Well, I’m not sure exactly what she said then, but it caused me to tremble and my bladder to constrict.

    Now….I found menopause to be an unnerving and confusing time. What I eventually learned, was that menopause is no minor thing unless you’re a whale or an ameba. It has the power to make a woman laugh or cry and sometimes do both at once. They also have to be careful about sneezing too hard unless they have spare underwear, but most of the time they won’t care. To me, Wifey had always been my Snow White, but now there were the “Seven Dwarfs of Menopause”….Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Bloated, Forgetful, and All-Dried-Up. The hot flashes are a real problem and they can be very unsettling for many women. If scientists ever find a cure for menopause, I truly believe global warming will end. There is humor in all this and when the proper medications are prescribed or confinement is adequate, then most couples can relax and share a few laughs….maybe.

    There was one issue that was difficult to overcome. She had became very critical and belligerent of my intelligence and common sense. She started to think that maybe I was a little whacked and needed some professional help in understanding her exotic needs. Fact was, why go to a psychiatrist who would give me expensive answers that wifey would give me for free? But, that’s okay. She’s in good working order now and the worst is far behind us. The only thing left that still reminds me of those rough times….is the seam running up her back where her skin pealed off that first time.

MELON NURSERY

    Oh my yes….where do babies come? One of the greatest mysteries of our existence. I remember quite well, when I found out. Wifey had sat me down just a short time after our honeymoon and using a legal pad, she slowly and patiently explained it all to me. She told me that I was like a farmer who worked his farm only at night and maybe once during the day on Saturdays. That the farmer had to go out and slowly work his yielding field by plowing the furrows deep so he could plant watermelon seeds. Sometimes the furrows were not deep enough, so he had go back and plow again and again until he got it right, even if he was exhausted. Then, after much plowing, he could take a nap.

    Finally, after a non period of time, one of the watermelon seeds would germinate and then the farm would totally change. The cow now started to grow and moo louder, the pig grew to become a magnificent sow and the chickens stop laying. The weather became unpredictable in that one day it would be sunny and pleasant, but the next there would be tornado’s, destruction and upheavals. The farm had become unpredictable.

    Finally, at the end of the growing season, it would be harvest time. The excited farmer would patiently stand by while the helpers took care of the ripe melon. Finally, the large and beautiful creation was lifted up while the farmer clipped the vine freeing it from the depleted soil. He would then hold the melon and brag to all of how he had created this masterpiece of nature with one single seed and a well plowed field. Then the farmer had to allow the field to go barren for a few weeks before returning, and once again plowing the field with renewed enthusiasm. 

    This explanation of the farmer and his harvest was most interesting, except I didn’t get the whole picture of birth from it. Then Wifey explained about the hired hand who was busy banging the farmer’s wife every night while the farmer was out wasting his time checking out big melons. Then nine months later, Carlos was born. It was a lot clearer to me then.

                                                                               Charlie

©unccharlie2012

        The Curse of Teenhood  

    I did a blog recently about a teenage son and the connivery of his breed. Fictitious in the event, yet true in the possibility. I have raised three sons without shackles or restraints, and have found, after much observation, that the easiest thing in life is the simple act of being stupid. But, the most difficult endeavor in life is to be that of a teenager, (listed just below parent of teenager). These funny and enchanting adolescent boys, upon turning 13, wake up one morning and scream out loud, “I’m going to make my parent’s life a churning cesspool of contorted emotions, demands and unrealistic conversations!” You may have a different interpretation for when your own child morphed into demonic teen-hood, but this may very well be close.

    Your son’s running around the neighborhood with the guys playing basketball, skateboarding or piling in the back of a parents car for a day at the beach or public pool. He devours his dinner and then plays video games or watches South Park. He smiles a lot and he laughs a lot. Then one day….he hates you, his hair, this clothes, this butt and his life. He becomes obsessed with hair gel, sport shoes, how he walks and smells. His bedroom becomes the focal point for exorcisms and serves as the gateway to hell‘s domain. His walls are covered in posters of bizarre looking psychotic rap heroes and million dollar models dressed in band-aides. He now flaunts an earring that changes location, every few days, to a different part of his anatomy. He frowns a lot and he complains a lot and hears very little.

    The mother will say it’s only a stage he’s going through….but, if that’s being staged, I dread the friggin finale! It’s like saying insanity is just a temporary bump in the road on the way to being eighteen. You find yourself constantly asking him, “Did you just hear what you said??” Then you realize, as usual, he wasn’t paying attention to himself, much less to you the parent!

    He now spends so much quiet time in the bathroom that you’re beginning to think he has a bowel disorder. You meet his coming of age friends and soon you’re lost in trying to comprehend the language they’re speaking. The boys are annoying and the girls are frightening. They all move in a herd like manner, say the same words, wear the same clothes and if commanded by the alpha teen, would attack and eat you down to your bare bones, then they would all go to McDonalds.

    I know….we all went through it and generations after us will do the same. Someday, when they are grown with teens of their own, they may very well approach you for your wise and experienced advice in dealing with their demon-teens. It makes convents and military schools sound awfully good….just saying.

                                                                      Charlie

Donor Technician 

    I’ve given this matter a lot of thought throughout the years. My first hypothesizing started when my own children became teens and years later when my adult offspring ovulated and extruded more life into this world, only to later become teens themselves. Seems I have been surrounded by rogue mindless teens all of my life and I’m under the opinion they could have been prevented if systematic chastity, proactive counseling and castration had only been implemented before sex occurred.

    There are also couples, I have known during my lifetime, that have detonated their marriage over issues of sexual plunder outside the confines of matrimony. Throughout the years, wives of good friends have hinted to me, seductively, of their unnourished need for copulation and the growing hunger they suffered. I have also been privy to the shameful occurrences of office affairs conducted in the confines of janitorial closets resulting in spilt floor wax and assorted stains.

    There are also the politicians, who have added indiscretions as perks of the job. Then the religious leaders who have counseled the lost and needy with the laying on of hands, just one time too many, followed by regurgitated pleads of forgiveness. There are also the pedophiles who roam undetected in the damp shadowy landscape of society as verminous predators.

    Sex…….a simple word that has held our species in mental and physical bondage for eons. We use it as a marketing tool to sell a plethora of products, make movies, music, reality shows, lotions, whips and latex. We are captives of our own desires. Now to the solution. Consider this; making genetic alterations that will neutralize the need for testosterones, estrogen and selective pheromones to the next generations. Propagation of the species would then be selective and non sexual with in vitro fertilization. The only requirement for insemination would be the harvesting of sperm cells from “Semen Farms.” The semen donors would be the only males kept sexually prowess and stimulated in order to maintain a rigorous supply of swimmers. These clinical farms, or resorts, would be staffed with provocative female nurses……extensively augmented and trained in therapeutic massage and pole dancing.

    I feel that this responsibility, (as donors), should be shouldered by the senior citizens of our society. I, for one, would be the first to volunteer my services and social commitment to such a cause……..because I care.

Age is measured in years, but life in moments…..Charlie

    We may live to be 100 now a days. At least well int o our 70′s, if they vote down Health Care Reform, (sorry about that last comment). Anyway……our lives have always been defined by very select moments. We may all share many of these special time events, but nonetheless, they are all very unique to each of us. These moments are so clear and defined in our minds that we relive them often and with great emotional clarity.

                                                                                Charlie