Open Writing

I cannot remember whether my mother ever told me to act my age. She probably didn’t because she did not say very much to me at all. On balance, I would have to guess that someone, somewhere, is likely to have made the remark to me on the odd occasion, but that is pure speculation.

At my age the age thing is fairly significant, especially considering the trivial percentage of men in my age bracket that survive to shuffle their creaking ways into the crumbling ranks of Homo Sans Sapientis Geriatricus Nonagenarianocracy.

In this scientific age there are ways of predicting with reasonable accuracy what one’s chances are of hanging around to witness important, but as yet unfulfilled, events, such as discovering life on Mars, Paris Hilton getting a real job, finding George W Bush’s complete set of military records, or coming across the aged survivors of a remote tribe of ancient mining prospectors who set out deliberately to find FeS2, that is a Latin word for ‘Fool’s Gold.’

There is no doubt that we live in an age of unusual expertise, so it is becoming less likely each passing day that someone makes an error, and so it is only a matter of time before errors and mistakes are a thing of the past. To that time, I look forward with eagerness. However, two events in a single week have confirmed to me that we are not there yet.

The first is difficult to understand, apart from the fact that it was made by the marketing and development department of the Gillette Razor Company. Opening my mailbox the other day I fount a present, delicately wrapped, with "Happy Birthday Ronnie" emblazoned thereon in a striking uncial font. The fact that it wasn’t my birthday – it is in January – did not trouble me. I am aware that sometimes the Pony Express doesn’t get through the blinding desert snowstorms, and a person’s personal post can be a trifle delayed.

But why would Gillette be recognising my birthday? Although I have used their products in the past, I have been Gillette-less since I kicked the wet shaving habit many years ago. I could have understood it if I had a package from Remington, because my six-year-old electric shaver and I are on reasonable terms and whilst we do not connect every day, so to speak, we do meet fairly often, with the exception of the goateed chin, that is. However, worse was to come.

When I had unceremoniously stripped off the fancy gift wrap paper, I was stunned to find one of Gillette’s state-of-the-art five-bladed Fusion™ razors, together with a salutation that wished me a "Happy 18th Birthday!"

You will apprehend the cause of my bewilderment when I mention that whilst the gift was appreciated, as all gifts are, they had missed the actual event by a few years - fifty-five, to be exact. I enjoyed a wet shave that day, but there were no spare blades, so what I will do with it in the future, remains to be seen.

Given the choice, I prefer to be thought younger than I am, rather than be considered to have gained more annular rings than those to which I am specifically entitled. The ‘worse’ came close on the heels of Gillette’s age mangling that had turned the clock the other way. I confess I was more disturbed by this second one than I was by the first, and the reason for this is on this wise.

For the past several months I have been dieting to reduce my more than ample unnecessary burden of adipose tissue – fat! My starting weight was fifteen and a half stones (215 pounds in the Colony), and I now stand at a svelte eleven stone and two, or thereabouts which is 162 pounds on John Bull’s Other Island and my exact weight in August of 1952, when I went foe a soldier and enlisted in the colours at age seventeen and a half.

Getting into suits that did not come near to fitting for years made me realise what I have been missing. The loss of four stones, which is 55 pounds in the ‘Land of the Supersized,’ has eased the burden of weight on my grinding joints has, thereby, reduced my pain level considerably. No doubt, my heart is also enjoying the respite.

Armed with this positive outcome while not yet down to my ideal weight, I took the test at RealAge.com by the simple expediency of inputting my gender, age, height, weight, and by answering questions about my past and present health issues, hospitalisations, medications, and personal habits such as smoking and drinking, the area in which I live, and the kind of vehicle I drive.

That information supplied, I hit the ‘submit’ button, and eased back in my chair so as to be entirely comfortable and relaxed when the compliment would arrive and my ego would be massaged.

RealAge’s scientific programme uses probabilities to assess the prognosis as determined by my data, the raw score of that is then divided by my age in Annie’s Dominoes, take away the number you first thought of, and then it issues its Olympian verdict on how old my body really is in its cells and fibres, independent of actual chronological determinants.

As I was waiting for its conclusions, passing time by creating a ‘Bragging Rights’ button, the computer hissed, spluttered, jumped three inches from the desk, and then delivered its answer, following which I hissed, spluttered, jumped three-feet from my chair, and then delivered a cow!

At the ripe young age of 73 years, with my weight cruising merrily down, and my blood pressure a constant hundred and ten over fifty-four, I was declared to be almost defunct by the demons at RealAge, who I do not like any more! Well, would you if they said your ‘inner body age’ was eighty-six?

I’m getting ready to see where I can buy blades for my new Gillette razor, sent to me for my eighteenth birthday.

Copyright © 2008 – Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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