The Boomers Guide to Dying by KOOPERSMITH PBC

Jeff Koopersmith’s

CONTENTS 1. LONGEVITY – Not what it’s cracked up to be

2. FORGETFULNES S – Use it to your advantage

3. LOS ING YOUR JOB – Why not?

4. TECHNOLOGY – Computers and other Junk

5. INTERN ET DATING – Trance invention?

6. S EX AND LOVE – Which is least important?

7. RELIGION – Is it Too late now?

8. YOUR LOVING CHILDREN – Dream On!

9. YOUR GRANDCHILDREN – Blessing or Curse?

10. S POUS ES – Getting rid of them without paying criminal defense lawyers.

11. GETTING IN TOUCH WITH “O LD” FRIENDS – Don’t!

12. LIVING IN TRAILERS OR TENTS FOR FUN – You may have to.

13. DOCTORS – They can’t save you, but they can make you feel better about croaking.

14. PLAS TIC S URGERY - To go with your plastic diaper pants.

15. INS URANCE – Cash it in.

16. DOING YOURS ELF IN – Not the greatest idea – but here’s a few simple ideas that might do the trick.

17. YOUTH–ANES IA – Never trust an Armenian doctor with your quick demise.

18. MUS IC AND DANCING – S pare theml!

19. GAY BOOMERS – Finally off the “watch list”

20. DRIVING – How to get away with driving when your license is revoked.

21. CLOTHING – S top wearing this – S tart stealing that.

22. THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU GET BORED – Punching your children and parents.

23. TRAVELING AND MAKING YOURS ELF A PAIN – Excitement with travel agents and others!

24. PETS – To fill the big void

25. GETTING EVEN – Now that’s a hoot!

26. CLAS S REUNIONS – Are you out of your mind!?

27. CHOOS ING THE PERFECT “S COOTER” – Even of you can walk – why not?

28. WRITING YOUR LAS T TES TAMENT – Messing with your family’s mind

29. RETIREMENT HOMES – Yours or theirs?

30. DIAPERS , TEA OR MILK OF MAGNES IA?

31. HOS PITALS – An entertaining place to die?

32. HOS PICES – No fun at all.

33. CHOOS ING A “GROOVY” COFFIN OR CRYPT – Yes. Louis Vuitton will make one for you – But a GREEN burial is really cool!

34. YOUR LAS T DAYS – Counting backwards

35. FRIGHT! – Oh yeah! – You’ll be frightened alright: Cared to death.

36. HEAVEN OR HELL?

37. YOUTH–ANES IA – Never trust an Armenian doctor with your demise.

38. MUS IC AND DANCING – Please – be careful!

39. TECHNOLOGY - Computers, E-M ail, and Other Stuff

I Introduction

Don’t laugh – you, your lovely wife and/or girlfriend may look like this in 10 years

◙ Recently a very dear and adored love of mine found out her father was dying of cancer, widespread over his 83 years-old body. He died quickly and happily or so I am told. This book is dedicated to him, Bronson Howell, because he, during our final conversation, kept me in stitches and I realized that I too was soon to follow, along with another 80 million folks of my generation. Bronson was married and his wife was over eighty as well. They had lead full lives. He gave me a gift with his impending death. He made me get on to study more closely my own growing fear and trembling anticipation of my own death within the next decade or two -- with luck – or even sooner. The thing is – Bronson did not seem afraid, and yet I knew he was, and that I certainly would be vexed when the time came. He made me laugh, when it was I who wanted to make him smile.

This book was written to make you laugh about growing old and what might be waiting for us. Between the lines however, it is serious, and every chapter might have deeper meaning that you might consider. This is the way we all need to go out - laughing – and here are my ideas about that. Today I am 58 years old, almost 59. I smoke cigarettes almost incessantly. I eat too much, and then I don’t eat enough to try and make up for my gluttony. I no longer exercise much and I spend most of my day sitting in front of the keyboard of my laptop or my piano. I write about American politics in which I have been immersed since I could walk – a stressful field if there ever was one. I’d say I’ll be lucky to live another five years let alone the twenty or thirty physicians pretend we all can live to now. Don’t believe it. Of course, I say – Who cares? I never wanted to live to be so old. As a child I lived around some very unattractive old people with repellent accouterments and frankly there wasn’t much about their aged, even if privileged, lives that I am now or then looking forward to. I’m lying of course. Like you, I want to live forever. However that’s just not in the cards – not yet anyway and when it is – governments will make sure to kill us off anyway under some “compassionate conservative” euthanasia plan. M any of my friends, colleagues, and associates seem to be running helter skelter away from the grim reaper as fast as you can Octogenarian M arathon biker!

Another Octogenarian hitting the pavement trying to be young!

I do nothing about extending my life – but I must admit I share other’s interest in immortality yet I am not silly enough to believe there is much I can do to lengthen life and yet enjoy it. Even if you live to be 90 years old it is the quality of life that must be protected. And mark my words, quality is not about denying yourself – it is opposite. In fact, 90 year olds may still be able to hobble with two hip replacements and still talk a bit or at least yammer – but the truth is that most of them are in diapers and suffer from so many ills that their night stands are not large enough for the dozens of little brown medicine bottles they cling to in order to keep on going, and going, and going.... Not for me. I confess I am sometimes frightened into near tears thinking I have so little time left to do whatever I can do. I already notice my age – Those things creeping up on me, on us, that we - born between 1942 and 1964 are about to experience. – All 80 million of us! We deny these harbingers of age and death – but we all take note or live in denial. I now have two beautiful grandsons named William and Stephen who are near to three years old, and the latter just born. My newborn is called Steven although I wanted my own son to name him “BingBang” – which in Chinese means something like ‘Leader of the World.’

My sense, not at all ingenius, is that the Chinese, in the end, will beat out India and rule the world just as we Americans – most likely in our national death throes - are stuggling to do today. I won’t be around to see that – and geez – I studied Chinese politics at university! But Will and Steve will be – and I want them to live their lives fully – not in pursuit of distance end to end. Anyway, here is my attempt to ease your mind about dying – without all the psychobabble and medical talk. Believe me – you won’t live any longer if you see your doctor and gerontologist every week for the rest of your life. So smile – you are going to die and it might be fun. Jeff Koopersmith Lugano Switzerland New York, New York

CHAPTER ONE

Longevity

Here I am trying to put an end to Gran’s longevity! For the most part increasing your longevity is one big fantasy. There have been people living for more than one hundred years for centuries – maybe for millennia. Yet most of us die between 62 and 74. That’s a fact you can rely on – as does Aetna Life Insurance Company. This means that any of you born in 1942 are about to be “living on borrowed time.” The only bits and pieces that have increased the average age at death are medicines and preposterous surgeries that simply put off the inevitable – non-industrial action of the heart..

Oy Vey – I must have pulled a muscle again!

In the end we all expire of heart failure. The heart stops. Oxygen stops flowing to our brains and other vital organs – and we die. This is not so terrible. Simple yes, but now and then untidy. I recall sitting in a fulsome Philadelphia country club on the M ain Line having dinner. An older wellpolished man in his customary three-brass-button blue sports jacket stood up from his dinner table just next me, projectile vomited, shit his pants and fell on the nice wooden floor face first dead as dead can be. He had suffered a massive heart attack while sipping his costly port. A first-class way to go – yet someone else has always to clean up the mess. The corpse was swept away by a groveling maitre de and a small Hispanic bus boy while most people didn’t even get up or bother to stop eating their dinners except for a single stunned moment. Unanticipated death can be disorderly and annoying. And the older you get the messier is gets on the way to the cemetery and of course at the end; a point or two you might want to consider as you pray to live another decade, and then another. Doctors are really no help – except when they prescribe drugs that make you feel good, or sew up a cut your grandson gave you with his Star Wars death wand. I am not suggesting you stop seeing your doctor regularly. There are many things he or she can do to make your invariable decline more comfortable and appealing.

For instance you can get new knees, new breasts, and now even a new face if you are one that likes looking in the mirror only from the neck up. An entirely new body is dangerously costly. But if you’re even more in love with yourself – then your entire body might be able to be made over – yet your body might not abide the trauma of such an enormous surgery and you will die on the operating table of some Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s brushed Italian stainless steel table – most likely without your kids and grandkids around to say “goodbye” and “where’s my money?” Because I smoke I am often asked by the incredulous new wavers of my generation why I continue. My answer is simple. I watched my own father – at age 38, give up smoking and drink because some doctor told him he had a blood disease that would hasten his death from these habits. So, he quit and that was painful for him – and then - less than a year later he was killed in a car crash - on Christmas Day no less. Now remember that! It is very important because it underscores the fragility of planning your extended and far too extensive life. You can no more plan to live longer than expected by New York Life than you can fly to M ars on a boogie board. You cannot arrange your longevity. Not ever. Even the fabulously wealthy Howard Hughes didn’t do a good job of it although he chose to spend the last decades of his miserable life strapped to an operating theater table and spending hundreds of millions trying to live forever. Face it boomers – we are toast no matter what we do – so we might as well enjoy life now. M any of you have either consciously or unconsciously realized this truth already. I call us – the ones who have accepted that we are going to die “pretty soon” or the “Happily Not Quite Departed”. (HNQDs) M ost of us though are in denial. I call you just “Stupid.” Those of us who have consciously realized that they might have 5 to 15 years left - Happily Not Quite Departed (HNQD) - are easy to spot. They are the ones that are running up huge American Express bills tearing around the earth trying to squeeze thirty years of not traveling anywhere into three of four summers. God forbid they should travel off season.

The HNQDs also spend less and less time with their children and grandchildren until they have to. They know that in the end they must suffer through looking at the faces of these kids day after day - little tykes who are bored to death with Dad or M om or worse – Grandma and Grandpa. Believe me – not one of your offspring, or off-offspring, not even your loving daughter wants to change your poop-filled diapers for several years preceding your “final destination.” But back to longevity. Have you ever truly thought about getting old – I mean really thought about it like the neurotic baby boomer you really are? I bet not. M ost of us are not capable of being introspective unless we have either Russian Jewish, Italian, or Gypsy relatives and a very expensive psychiatrist. All of us Boomers think in the past or maybe even just for today – but never in the future now – unless it’s about speculating on IPOs. Thinking in the past is comforting. M ost of us, on the verge of being able to creep-out anyone under the age of 25, have not noticed that we’re getting age spots on our hands, or that our necks are beginning to look like a twice-used condom or an aging Sharpei. We have already stopped counting the varicose veins on our calves. What is most shocking is seeing a snapshot of ourselves taken when we hadn’t realized pictures were being shot. That’s the worst! From time to time I truly believe that the ascribed characteristic of magic mirrors – the stuff of novels - is true. I mean really, do you ever look in a mirror and think – Hey, I’m 65 and I look like it! Not on your life. (Pardon the pun). No way. We all look in mirrors – at least when we are expecting to – and think ‘Hey – I haven’t changed much since I was 28.' Recently I had the misfortune of watching a television interview I did – well actually a series of them in 1980 – 30 years ago! I looked at the kid on the screen – me – who was 29 at the time and thought I looked like a high school kid.

This is the sort of trick your mind plays on you all the time. It reminds you that you are mortal, and you hark back that you are not. So really take a look in the mirror every day and truly see yourself as you are. It’s not that bad. Every morning – get up, get naked and look in a full length mirror – preferably one that magnifies - and say – Look at me – I’m an old man (woman) and when will I accept it and have some fun! There are many ways to examine yourself to make yourself absolutely certain that you are old above and beyond the stains on your underwear. As you are studying yourself in the mirror take a look at your legs – especially if you are a man, or wear socks every day. You will notice that there is absolutely no hair on the area between your toes and just below the knee. Why? Because you’re so damn old that hair has simply given up growing there! It is tired of fighting with your socks. Now all that’s left is shiny yellowish skin. Accept it – you are going to die reasonably soon. You can also look for signs of skin cancer – although you won’t be happy to see it. You can even have varicose veins removed with the stroke of a hypodermic but that won’t stop you from dying, so why bother. Take a look at your middle. If you’re a woman or a man who is often up and down in weight – you might notice the ugliest stretch marks ever conceived by a Goth artist. They are yours. You’ve earned them – but face it – no one else wants to see them on the beach – so wear a long tee shirt! Now remember – thus far I am only talking to the HNQDs – the people who realize and accept they are going to die sooner than later – at least 20% of the time – which is very high. Now some advice for the Stupid Un-Dead (SUDs) You, as an un-dead person have two choices. You can begin to become Happily Not Quite Departed, a stage between the SUD and The Truly Dead – or you can simply live on in maniacal denial – most likely for a much shorter time than you think because in your subconscious the idea of dying soon will eat at your psyche like a wood wasp on the eaves of a Cape Cod shake roof and you will have a heart attack or a stroke from all that undigested anxiety.

I know I won’t be able to convince all of you SUDs or even most of you that you don’t have a whole heckuva lot of time left – There is no human being more stubborn than someone holding on for dear life. The SUD. Yes, you know who you are – our defiant dudes and dudettes. You’re the kind of person who says that “it’s not the quantity of life – it’s the quality” and thus you stay fit, deny yourself treats and run around like a clown every morning until you break your hip tripping over the curb or worse, simply fall over. In fact, for you it’s not the quality of life at all for you is it? – it is certainly and only the quantity that counts – for everything. After all, no matter how far you run, bike, or ski every day – you are still going to die – and you are still going to die at the average age we all do absent an intervening fatal accident – which by the way you are more likely to have if you continue to SCUBA dive! The worst of you are the Vegans! Oh sure - Eating meat might hasten your death. I hate to tell you - but that’s simple rubbish. Indians are Vegans – they die far earlier than Americans on average and if they don’t they look like raisins too long in the box. The only excuse I would accept for your Vegetarianism is that every time you look at a piece of meat you think of a chicken or cow as its throat is cut and in the final throes of death. If you do see this in your mind’s eye, swear to God? – Then it’s okay to be a Vegan if you’re an FBI agent in the movie “Silence of the Lambs.” Otherwise – go out and eat a steak at least once a weak. Pretend it’s made of soy. If you are yet in denial – try not shopping at The Gap as if you are convinced that dressing like your teenage granddaughter will keep you ageless. Women: If you think putting on more makeup to cover those wrinkles and the circles under your eyes is attractive - You are nuts. Instead, what you look like after your daily paintjob is a rotting fresco painted against a quickly decomposing wall or a M exican glass clown somewhere in Cabo San Lucas. The older you get – the less makeup you can get away with. Take it from me – or take it from Town and Country. I know, by habit many of you will instead go out and buy airbrushes to apply the makeup using a varnish base. It won’t work.

And men: Stop buying size thirty-four pants when your waist is a size forty- two. Nothing looks grosser than your hirsute beer belly hanging over your zipper like a water balloon because your polo shirt it stretched upward by your tits. Purchase pants that fit you and try to keep them at least a half inch above your belly button. And for God’s sake – go rent some Cary Grant movies. Notice that he never wore culottes with little tie strings that hung between his ankles and his calves. There is this new thing called dressing classically – the proven style for the almost elderly - which can even include loud colors, neon orange golf shirts, white shoes, belts, or paisley silk neckerchiefs. Just ask Ralph Lauren to help. All of you, men and women: – stop laying in the sun for hours every day or spending $600 a month at the tanning parlor. You look old enough already. M aybe just a little sun every day is enough? Better yet try pinching your cheeks to produce a rosy look when you want to appear healthy like Rose Kennedy seemed to do. Better yet, take vitamin D pills and stay inside. Why you want to bother to be tan is beyond me. Nobody cares – believe me. A tan will not get you a young lover – money will. One more thing for you HNQDs. Be prepared to be loathed by the SUDs! They will hate you consistently. Why? Because in their weak little minds they believe your “fun” lifestyle – your dedication to true quality of life makes a mockery of their dedication to longevity. A few words for you aging “power athletes”. Has anyone ever told you that geriatric men and women should not – I repeat – should not run five miles a day or ride a thirty-two speed bike in the Alps dressed in Italian spandex? First you runners – You all look like idiots in your $200 running shoes padding along the street. Second, you scare the bejeezus out of young people who think they might, at any moment, have to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation on your ugly mug to revive you. Bicycle freaks – get a life. No one in a car wants to stare at your fat ass under a pair of Nike nylon tights as you struggle up Laurel Canyon trying to prove you can actually make it from Beverly Hills to Van Nuys in less

than a week while wearing a kaleidoscopic safety helmet and wraparound Oakley sunglasses. Please. Try swimming. It’s easy on the joints and no has to see your body under the water unless he is wearing a mask – which he won’t be; Believe me. And please – no Speedos or bikinis unless you are in the last stages of chemo. Women – stay with the one piece bathing suits unless you just got out of a Russian labor camp – and men – throw on an extra large tee shirt when you come out of the water – as quickly as possible.

Things to do to increase your happiness while waiting to die – The Koopersmith Method: 1. Smoke, and smoke a lot. This will save your heirs a lot of money once the cancer takes hold. 2. Have sex as often as possible being careful to use heavy lubricants. 3. Try having sex with someone you own age, or older– if you can do it without vomiting, or if you can - pay someone younger a lot of money to pretend you are attractive. 4. Try cocaine. And don’t pooh-pooh it – just try it. If you like it use it often, It will increase your chances of having a coronary – but you’ll be the happiest you’ve ever been when you do die 5. If you are more laid back – try heroin, but prepare to never get up again. 6. If you are not neurotic and have never had nightmares about little white bunnies with bloody fangs eating your bathmat then try some LSD or Ecstasy. You only live once – And that is the truth no matter what Gandhi or Jerry Falwell told us. 7. As you move toward your middle seventies begin to run your credit cards to the max. Buy something, anything. M aybe you’ll enjoy it. 8. Don’t travel. It’s a pain in the ass and humiliating when you pee in your pants on a 757. If you have to travel, take a boat – it takes longer, there are lots of toilets all over the place, and maybe you’ll be dead by the time you arrive and then you won’t have to worry about customs. 9. Take lots of long naps. This will prepare you to be dead. 10. Buy a dog that will surely outlive you and put him or her in your will to piss off your kids. Better yet, buy a parrot that must be taken care of for the rest of its life from the proceeds of your estate. Parrots can live to be well over one hundred.

11. When your kids tell you not to smoke another cigar tell them they will inherit faster. That will get them off you back. 12. Take cheer in the fact that Dick Cheney will probably be dead before you will – and he won’t be in Heaven to annoy you. 13. When you are eighty you can do even more fun things and get away with it – like robbing a liquor store or performing bestiality with a teacup monkey on the beach. (What happened to those teacup monkeys anyway?) 14. If you look older than you are, try walking into movie theaters without paying. Just pretend you have Alzheimer’s. You probably do anyway. 15. Never renew your driver’s license, what can they do to you? 16. Remember that kid in high school who used to tease you mercilessly? Call his wife and leave a message that she should meet his doctor in the emergency room as soon as possible – and bring his best new suit. 17. Put a death notice in all the major newspapers in locations at which you have more than 15 friends. Say that contributions should be sent – instead of flowers, etc – to the “Boomer” and give a post office box you have rented. Now, see who sends a check – but don’t cash them! Or do. What can they do to you? 18. Disappear for awhile and then call a mortuary. Tell them that you are Doctor X (look up the name of a real doctor), and that your patient – [you] - has just died after a long bout with heart disease. Remember to tell them “I’ll sign the death certificate when you get here.” This is key phrase. Then hide somewhere in the house. Watch and see the reaction of your family when the hearse drives up and asks to pick you up! [I have actually done this – believe me, it’s worth the money because you’ll have to pay the mortuary if you get caught.] Things to decrease your happiness while you are waiting to die: 1. Buy a big sailboat and realize you aren’t strong enough to flush its hand pump toilet let alone raise the mainsail. 2. Women: Dress like Paris Hilton and endure the snickers. 3. M en: Buy a Porsche or, if you are a woman – a Corvette. 4. Decide to run a mile without walking one first. 5. Have more than two shots of vodka at a Palm Beach pickup joint and feel what it’s like to be alone at 2 AM with a seventy year old hooker while drunk. 6. Read Popular Science and remind yourself that you won’t be around to see men travel to M ars or even to France. 7. Think about the fact that there is a slight chance that they will find a cure for cancer only a week after you die from it. 8. Tell your grandson that you are not old and watch his face.

9. Take up roller blading 10. Buy a push up or strapless bra and wear it in front of a mirror. 11. Film you and your partner having sex, and then be foolish enough to watch it. 12. Think about all the fun you could have had if you hadn’t saved for your retirement just to impress your kids with how much money you’ll leave them. 13. Think about how stupid you were not to take out a five million whole life policy when you could afford the premiums. This would have allowed you to spend all the cash that is now stuck in Government bonds and CDs yielding 2%. Your kids and you would have been more contented on your dying day. 14. Look in the mirror every chance you get – especially when sitting on the toilet.

CHAPTER TWO FORGETFULNES S

If you are over 45 you already know that your synapses are not firing like they used to and that as each year passes you find it more difficult to remember or to memorize even your birthday - and that no one has invented “CorrektAll” yet. Alzheimer’s – It may be a gift

Brain at 35 –

Brain at 75

My theory is that forgetfulness and even Alzheimer’s is really not a sign of aging – merely boredom or just plain disgust and revulsion. We all recall how much we were forced to memorize in grade school, high school, college, even grad school. We also know that we used about one percent of those memories in real life. In short – we know that education, except in the highest theoretical sense, or as an art form, is bullshit. You’re either smart or not. Period. A prime example of this is George W. Bush – a Boomer himself. He is, forgive me, a patent idiot. We all know that – yet he is, well – sort of educated. Now George – who must be a lot of fun at a nude Hilo beer bust – is also more forgetful than most. He forgets he was raised in a patrician home in Connecticut and Washington D.C. He forgets how to pronounce simple words and how to construct a declarative sentence. Yet he does not, like President Reagan did, suffer from Alzheimer’s. In fact President Bush, I expect, wants to be perceived as being even dumber than he is.

That way he can blame Dick Cheney for everything. So let us agree that we older people are just bored to tears and disgusted and really don’t care who the name of the producer of the first James Bond movie was or who played the part of the station master in “Little House on the Prairie.” Sure, sometimes you panic when you can’t remember your own daughter’s name – but this is merely a defense mechanis m. You don’t want to remember her name because for most of you life she has pissed you off. Forget the defense. Go on the offense! Using “forgetfulness” as a powerful weapon is something you must learn in order to cope with old age and at the same time amuse yourself.

She Uses Forgetfulness as a Power Tool!

Here are a few ways to bring false senility into play to your advantage – and remember not to overuse these tricks until you are at least 64 years old because no one will believe you are getting that forgetful until then unless you are truly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Then again, you might swipe a some doctor’s letterhead on which you can diagnose yourself and then sign it with a doctor’s name who recently dropped dead himself. (This, so your family can’t call him to verify your illness.)

Here are the best uses of your newfound “Forgetfulness”: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Oh, did I forget to send that check? Really? I thought I had flushed the toilet I am so bad. I forgot to put out the trash again! Officer, I am always forgetting to pay for my shopping. It’s a medical problem 5. What do you mean I didn’t tell you I was coming for the summer dear – I know I did! 6. Darn, I forgot to make the coffee again, and I’m so tired – Honey…. 7. Of course I took a shower only yester……or was that last Tuesday? 8. Silly me. 9. I am worried I won’t remember to take my pills son – that’s why I need to live with you and Darla. 10. Gee. I forgot to go to the store again – could you pick up…… Now, as you grow older and older, you can try these: 1. I forgot my pills, we have to go home. (good on the way to the opera) 2. Just what is a driver’s license sonny? 3. You mean this isn’t the toilet? 4. I just can’t remember to clean the house anymore; I must be getting even blinder! 5. Pop Tarts! I thought they were floor tiles. 6. Diaper, what diaper I always wear boxers! 7. Hugs? Are you kidding? Who are you anyway? 8. Life is just a bowl of urine! 9. I remember when men flew to M ars.. 10. This is First Class? So what are you gonna do about it stewardess! You cannot imagine how wonderful it will be for you, to make people think you cannot remember anything. First of all, memory has a very deep connection to “responsibility”. The less you recall the less accountable you are for the results, usually not so good, of forgetting. It’s magnificent really. There are too many opportunities to use forgetfulness to outline here, but take the issue of going somewhere you don’t want to go – like your son’s fifth wedding. Simple; just say – “I forgot.”

Cooking dinner is a bore – so simply “forget” to do it if you are not living alone – but always apologize profusely and add a tear running down you cheek if you can manage it. (You can buy fake tears at any theatrical supply.) Another good trick you can use, now and then, at the grocery store is to “forget” your wallet. This one is only good when you have purchased less than 20 dollars worth of stuff – and no cigarettes. Store managers will not believe anyone who smokes. Take it from me. Most of the time the manager will trust you to bring the money in the next day. Of course, try this only at supermarkets that are at least twenty miles from your home and never try walking out with a whole eighty dollar roast beef without an explanation – not until you are well over 85. If you’re a man and can still “perform” after reaching 85, then you are free to hang around houses of prostitution for fun and release. If your wife finds out, you can simply tell your family that you forgot you were married. It works every time – but not too often. Besides, you wife couldn’t really give a damn anymore. I suggest and would appreciate it if you mail me other “forgetful” schemes you have thought up on your own. I would collect them and put them in the next edition but I’ve forgotten my address.

CHAPTER THREE LOS ING YOU JOB If you have one in the first place

I knew I should have voted Democrat!

Face it, “the men at the top” are already scrutinizing you as you cruise toward 60 or 65 or even 70 years old. M any companies already have what they call “mandatory retirement age” – a nice way of telling you they are sick and tired of paying your ever-increasing health insurance premiums and matching pension contributions. In Europe they actually tell you how young you have to be to even apply for most jobs. Parenthetically the bosses are also anxious that you are getting “slower” – “crankier” – “too set in your ways” and maybe even “disgusting” because you don’t trim your nose and ear hair! Whichever the case, by the time you are ready – or not – to retire, your employer, partners, and probably your favorite waitress at the local coffee shop are all ready to tell you, “Goodbye and good riddance!”

Accept it. So what? – sometime between the average age of 60 and 65 you are going to be booted out if you don’t voluntarily leave your office, truck, airplane or other workplace. Yet, if your savings, pension (if you have one), and social security won’t get you past M editerranean on the M onopoly Board take heart. There is already a spot waiting for you at M acdonald’s, Burger King, and maybe, just maybe – at Pizza Hut. On top of that – you might be able to secure the imposing position as “Greeter” at your local Wal-M art. The good news is that the minimum wage is slowly increasing thanks to our friends in Congress who are giving you a raise that might get to seven bucks an hour in several years. That’s a whopping huge amount of money. Think about it –if you work full time – 40 hours a week – you will gross $280 dollars a week! That isn’t exactly chump change… is it? Of course there will be a few deductions from that check – so maybe you’ll end up with $240 or $1,000 each month. If you don’t eat, you might be able to have your own one room apartment depending on where you live and if you own a gun. So face it – no one but people on your payroll is worried about you when you get old. The government would prefer that you dropped dead right now – or at least once you spend all your savings. By then you will cease to be productive – if you don’t produce, you are simply flotsam – or is that jetsam? You will, at some time or other, be referred to as “a parasite” -so get used to that too. Thus I must recommend that if you haven’t already started already, you better save, save, save! First thing is to ditch that house of yours. I know you are saving it for your kids to argue over – but you are going to need the cash you might get once some other sucker buys it from you. If you insist stupidly on staying in your house then you should look at the newest rat-like strategy offered by our “fine” lending institutions –the “reverse mortgage.” This is not the place to go into detail about this type of mortgage but suffice it to say it’s a way to suck you dry while you’re still alive by paying you here and there while the asset – your house - drops in value for you like a stone falling in a mile deep wishing well.

Let me, however, suggest a budget for you that assumes that you don’t own a house, have about seven bucks in the bank, and have been lucky enough to have landed one of those seven dollar an hour jobs.

BUDGET for $900 Net Monthly Income Rent: $300 a month. This will get you a room in a house in South Central L.A. or “not the nice part” of the Bronx – but think about the great junk food! Medications: With co-payments rising for M edicare prescriptions the average boomer with 8 prescriptions will pay about $115 dollars a month for meds and those prices are sure to rise. Car: Forget about it. Take the bus. Even that will cost you $50 a month while you commute to Kentucky Fried Chicken to flip those wings. If you are really old – thumb a ride. Really. People feel sorry for and guilty about ignoring an old man or woman with a thumb out. But be sure to dress well and take a shower dammit. Entertainment: Well you can’t afford cable – so watch what you can get off the rabbit ears antennae. You can also count house flies, chase roaches, or sweep the kitchen floor once again. Clothing: Use what you have – as you lose weight, spend $25 a month on clothing at Good Will or learn to sew. Food and Misc: Budget 6 dollars a day for food and toilet paper. Well, you might need to buy diapers – they are pretty expensive. (See chapter below) Whichever the case – there is no more money left for M iscellaneous – so forget it. Utilities: Gas and oil rates are going sky high thanks to George Bush’s attacks in the M iddle East – Count on at least $150 a month if you live in a temperate climate, and if you live in Florida – or Alaska – Well you better move! Extras: You still have $5-$50 left. This is for “emergencies” so don’t go spending it on cigarettes or booze. Keep the extra in your mattress – you will need some other stuff once in a while. Believe me. M aybe a broom – maybe an IPOD, perhaps a bucket of laudanum – but you have to save for this kind of thing – It’s a smart thing to do!

CHAPTER FOUR TECHNOLOGY FOR THE OCTAGENARIAN Computers, E-Mail, and Other S tuff You Won’t Believe!

My husband said he had the biggest one on earth!

Boomers should be very comfortable with computers, cell phones, and DVD players. Beyond those, we might have a little trouble. To be honest, the use of computers by people over 65 is shaky at best. For one thing most of us will be half blind then and we’ll have to use 32 inch monitors in order to read our email. Then, of course, who will invent the keyboard with keys that are 2x2 inches each so we can see those and pound them with our elbows in order to write a short note in less than an hour? However, some of us will see fine, and so I am devoting a little time here to discuss the best way to use the computer in the winter of our lives. First of all – if you practice hard and live in America – you will never have to leave your home again – to do anything. This is actually a trick the government is playing on the population – mostly in the U.S. and

England. The rest of the world is far behind, but will catch up fast. They want you to stay home and not use public services you don’t pay for. UPS and FEDEX are also part of this conspiracy. Here is a fact: There is almost nothing but dental work that you can’t accomplish from the comfort of your den chair or even your hospital bed as long as you have a fast connection to the Internet. You can shop and have delivered straight to your front door –anything. You can also complain over the Internet – which all of you will be most interested in. There isn’t a company around that doesn’t have email to which you can write long and vicious complaints about everything from the way your nylons run to the fact that your meter reader was masturbating in our back yard this morning. Even if you make up these complaints, you will find that complaining is a great source of solace. Jews and New Yorkers of which I am both, learned this a hundred years ago – maybe more. You can use SKYPE or some other voice-over-internet program to call all over the world and complain. You can, for instance, call M oscow for maybe two cents a minute and ask to speak with Vladimir Putin about crazy Russian hookers or mail order brides. You could phone any dictator on earth and urge him to step down in favor of Democracy even though it won’t work. You can get the owner of Harrods on the phone with practice and ask him why his orange marmalade costs fifty dollars a jar. You can call the Queen of England and tell her to rename her son – the Prince of Whales in honor of the World Wildlife Fund. Use your imagination. Perhaps best of all you can carry your entire history around your neck by hanging a “USB memory device” around your neck onto which you can store almost any amount of material including, of course, your medical history which you can share with your canasta group or the emergency room without any trouble at all. A USB memory device is a tiny device that plugs into those little semirectangular holes in your laptop or desktop computer that you have no idea about.

These gadgets hold “data” including pictures, movies, your diary, your dreams and nightmares, your x-rays, prescriptions, what you are allergic to, and what you would charge had you chose prostitution at any given age rather than whatever career you did pursue. For the girls there is – believe it or not – something called the Swarovski Phillips Electronic Partnership that allows you to buy High-tech products like these – beautified with crummy pieces of glass that are supposed to look like gemstones. Swarovski is the company you are most familiar with through the collections of totally worthless glass figurines that look sort of like animals and that have collected dust in your aging aunt’s curio cabinet for the past fifty years. Now Swarovski is into something they call “Functional Fantasies” and “Active Crystals” that “merge functionality and fantasy.” Take if from me – the Swarovski crystals are not crystals, nor are they “active” in any way. If you took one out and put it in on a table – it would not move, creep around, try to poison you – or anything else. It will just sit there – gathering dust. In that way it is exactly like a diamond. No value at all. However the Philips Company – a giant firm specializing in all kinds of electronics along with Swarovski have taken technology to new heights of absurdity. Take a look at this:

The Heart Ware and Heart B eat Models – A USB memory device. Only about $200.00

The two companies also make earphones which certainly come in handy as your ears begin to go. They claim that these earphones offer “unparalleled acoustics with deep bass performance.” These headphones come complete with a stainless steel body and a “silver-colored” “fabric-like cable.”

In short the thing isn’t silver and doesn’t even use real fabric. But remember the glass in these pieces is ‘fully faceted’ cut crystal and the “The M irage” model ear-hook actually shines with its own oval-cut crystal. Does that mean that the other models do not shine? These USB memory “keys” access files, pictures, your tax returns, your criminal record, songs and much more – but as Swarovski tells us they “also make for extraordinary jewelry pieces.” That’s true – if they cost ten bucks they might be a bargain as cheap costume jewelry only, but these items are also “extraordinarily expensive.” Yet, with the added data space for approximately 1000 photos or 250 songs on 1GB, they now become – according to the companies ‘a beauty to behold.’ If you are willing to give up the “beauty” of glass then can buy a one gig USB flash drives (this is what they are really called) for about 20 bucks. Just check eBay. You can buy something smaller –without crystals – that stores 400% more stuff for about $75.00; and some are shaped like pens and other cute things that are, at least, not fake gemstones. Then again, some Boomer ladies and gays like a little bling. These two are for you!

and the “Lock Out” – (in the The “Lock In” shape of locks) – come in polished stainless steel with either baguette-cut crystals or Silver Shade crystals in a Ceralun setting. A hook mechanism allows for the locks to be fixed at just about any place. (TM )

The heart-shaped USB memory keys – “Heart Ware” and “Heart Beat” – have an asymmetrical cut crystal or crystal(s) in a Ceralun setting. These can be worn as pendants as they come on beige and light grey ‘silk cords. (TM )

My advice? Get on the Net and buy a cheap little USB flash memory gadget. Save the bling for Vegas.

CHAPTER FIVE INTERN ET DATING

Your dream “old woman internet date” – The one on the left stupid! The one on the right is her daughter, or her maid.

There is nothing invented by Boomers that is superior to Internet Dating. Nothing. Yes, we invented internet dating - something our fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers might have given their little fingers for. Imagine. For thirty dollars a month you can comb the earth looking for sex. If you are religious, weird, a for-real “good person”, or a pillar of the community you can also use these dating services to find a husband or wife that likes: “Long walks on the beach, candlelight, holding hands in public, Travel with a capital “T” and; being close to the family.” In short – internet dating is largely the digital residence of married men and women, horny widows and widowers, people who have never been married because they are too wrapped up in being “independent” – so much so that they are alone and in their, fifth or sixth decade and so set in their ways that even a tomcat wouldn’t live with them.

The all-purpose Female Internet date – no matter what she claims

Of course I am generalizing here. I am certain that only 77% of women internet date for free food and sex and that only 98% of men internet date for the sex only. The remaining 23% and 2% respectively are searching the internet for their first, second or sixteenth ‘true love.’ These are normal but sick people. The SUDs who try internet dating are a bit more hyper. You see them on M atch.com – or some other internet dating service trying for one or two final TV-romantic adventures while listing simply outrageous requirements for their future “love”. Hey Girls, forget it. Even if you’re “only” 60 and “go to the gym every day” and are “a vegetarian” and “work for charity” – you’re still an old hag that no man or woman really wants to sleep with except in a very tight pinch – maybe a bottle of Pinch. This holds true for both men and women so don’t accuse me of sexism – or do, what the heck do I care?

A True Male Fantasy Dream Date on the Internet – If he exists he’s an ax murderer!

If you truly want to laugh or get very depressed – go to M atch.com or another dating service and search for women over 55 years old looking for men with which to spend “quality time” or to marry. What quality time? We’ve almost run out of time! On internet dating sites one can list requirements for what they are looking for from their next “mate” – Well I hate to tell you girls – there were never men like this anywhere, and if there are – those men can find girls 25 to 30 years younger than you just by flashing their Platinum American Cards – or a wad of cash, which is even better. And for you guys; you fat fools – no woman, not even your own age, wants to pump you up with a penis enhancer or wait until you properly balance your dose of Prozac with your Viagra which might give you an erection for three or four days without getting depressed or bored and, ergo, keep you from going to her ballroom dancing classes unless you’re wearing a codpiece. However, there is one type of younger girl you Boomer men should be interested in. Their “biographies” will, until the end of time, say that they “like older men” and will include words like “financially very secure” – “not jealous” – and “does not mind a free spirit.” (This is code for “I will cheat on you.”)

t This is a gold digger. They are the easiest pickin’s on the Net.

Be careful with gold diggers however. Before you know it they will have you jetting off to Vegas to get married, and that’s after they have your Platinum American Express Card and a baby growing (yours or whoever’s). No matter, I can assure you the baby will still have your surname on its nursery tag. Here’s one way to get even: Remember the ruse about the guy who loved to “date: gold diggers.” He would take them to a furrier – (who is his friend of course). There he would buy a new mink or ermine coat for his date because, he tells her, I just know you are “the one!” Of course a coat that costs thirty grand or more must fit exactly right so a half hour is spent by this guy’s friend pinning the coat and fitting it perfectly to “the digger.” After the couple leaves the store, he buys her dinner and takes her home or to his hotel. Naturally she – who is thirty to forty years younger than he, but with her own financial agenda – complies with his every wish. In the morning –around ten a.m., the digger leaves quickly and quietly and heads straight for the furrier to pick up her ‘reward.’ The manager of the shop looks at her and says – “What fur coat?” Then he asks her to leave – nicely. That above is just one example of the best way to handle gold diggers. And women can do something similar. Just make friends with a Porsche Dealer. Then find yourself a dumb, but beautiful boy. After a time – and when you’re so horny you can’t stand it anymore, take him to look at cars and sign the papers for that new 911 and receive what you want from “golden boy.” When he goes to pick up the car the next day after it is “prepped”…Well you get it.

Girls - What you’ll usually end up with for your Internet Date

I do have some suggestions for all you internet daters between 50 and 70. For Men 1. Just say up front that you want to see if a new woman might actually give you an erection. 2. Get rid of the comb-over – face it – you’re either bald or balding. Flaunt it! 3. Stop saying you have an athletic physique – only Jack LaLaine could get away with that at your age. 4. Start claiming you are independently wealthy – even if you are living in your car. 5. Stop touching up your pictures with photo shop or using your son’s picture as your own! If you are ugly, fat, and still have acne on your back – tell the truth and try for a mercy date. It is far better to dig out that old high school or college yearbook picture and show a decade by decade decline in your appeal. For Women: 1. Just stop with displaying the pictures when you were 22. It doesn’t work - when the guy actually meets and sees you he just wants to puke with regret – and many actually have. 2. Don’t say that the most important thing to you is family – this guy wants to be your most important thing – at least for twenty minutes. 3. Don’t be stupid enough to tell the man you are “financially independent” even if you are. 4. Just say – hey, I can still have an orgasm and I want to have a bunch before I croak 5. If you are ugly, fat, and still have acne on your back – tell the truth and … try for the mercy date.

CHAPTER S IX S EX AND LOVE Which is least important? Okay! Some of you boomers are still young enough or insane enough to crave sex and need love. There are a few ways to tackle this. First you could simply wait until you do not crave sex which, believe in science, will come to at some time or other very soon â&#x20AC;&#x201C; although some men and women do continue with their sex lives well beyond the age of 75 - if they have the stomach for it - the little blue pills, and a five gallon can of lubricant. Closing your eyes helps. Getting used to old naked bodies helps as well. Here is a practice photo:

: Sex after 65

Love, true love, is a far more difficult problem. Even if you have not realized it yet you will become more child-like as you grow older. This is not a myth. Even at 59 I find myself interested in running a battery driven toy car with a stuffed cat tied to it in front of my giant schnauzer â&#x20AC;&#x201C; quite a bit more interesting than the New York Times. But with this second approaching infancy comes a deep yearning to be loved, to be held, and to be sung lullabies. You know once you pass eighteen that sex is fairly overrated. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t I raise my glass to you, however please know that most boomers find sex quite interesting during the final fifteen seconds, but really, at our age, the act itself is often just an annoyance before the final shout of joy. M ost of you boomers who are yet part of the un-dead are far too tranquil in your frantic denial that as a sex object you are close to, well, ZERO.

Dream sex af ter 60 This guy is wearing his watch on his right hand which means he plays the accordion

There are certainly exceptions to the ZERO concept. M ost of these are movie stars with great makeup artists, finicky photographers, and who live in shadowy rooms.

Other exceptions are more often than not gay men who have, because it’s a must, taken extra good care of their skin and bodies. Gay women, unfortunately because so many seem to want to live as straight men have often let themselves go from an early age so as to appear more masculine – although there are some very beautiful gay women. Darn it!

For the most part my advice to both men and women is to hire prostitutes. It is cheaper to pay for sex, more satisfying, and allows you to go back to your crossword puzzle or your toy poodle once it’s over without interference. The problem with this tack is that there is a paucity of male prostitutes for you girls. For you boys – well there is a dearth. Yet the girls have overlooked this during the feminist revolution. Didn’t you? Shame on you! Besides, older women tend to marry all the available male prostitutes once they find one who actually has table manners. For now however, most of you are forced to assume what polished people call “awkward circumstances” in order to get laid – especially if you are single or your husband is newly dead – or otherwise “not around.” However, there is still time. Remember in a few years you old girls will represent perhaps one third of all living female Americans – even if barely. If the market economy truly works, many thousands of younger males will begin to become prostitutes merely to serve the old-lady market and their own wallets. These men shall be called “ golddaggers” – men who are too lazy or selfimportant to work so they turn to women, and why not – we’re all equal no?

“Wealthy woman happy for now with your common GoldDagger”

Ladies, even if you are poorer than a grass snake, you can still get gold diggers or gold daggers to make “love” to you. All you need do is pretend to be rich. This requires renting expensive clothes, cars and a Rolex watch. To enhance your chances, perhaps a cruise for singles is the way to go because many young men will want to “see what it’s like to screw an old lady.” This also works for men and young girls, yet unhappily not often enough. Perhaps you men might add a tee shirt that screams, “Too old to make babies.” Or for the ladies “Too old to get pregnant” might be more on point. Whichever the case – Stop looking for true love with an elderly movie star who also holds several PhDs. If this happens it is only because God wants some diversion or feels like doing something incredibly nice because He/She has snorted Ecstasy. Face it. It’s enough just to find a woman breathing that would sit through an entire lunch with you while your cataracts, reflecting the ceiling lights, blind her. Go out, have a good time, and don’t be coy about sex – say you like it or you don’t – but keep the lights off – no matter what!

Chapter S even RELIGION Is it too late now?

Christianity

Atheism

Islam Jewthlic Jewish Orthodox

Buddhism

S atanic

Voodoo 47% of Americans say they commonly attend Church, a Synagogue, or a M osque (For M uslims this might mean prostration 35 times a week if they are unemployed!) Others attend Black M asses, Voodoo rites, and Greek or Russian Orthodox services. This tells you that at least 37% of Americans are lying. People lie to pollsters about religion and sex just like they lie to each other about these same topics. Just ask your local pastor. In fact hardly anyone but people over ninety (because they really do have absolutely nothings else to do), psychopaths, sociopaths, wannabee human bombs, and women who love to clean pews attend places of worship regularly unless you count politicians just about to run for office â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and they are in truth not human.

So, what are you – now five to twenty years away from that crowded cemetery off the Long Island Expressway in Queens, NY - going to do about God? This is a gut wrenching question and one I have not solved for myself. The closest I’ve come to accepting religion is to accept all religions – and to prove it I own, and often wear a neck chain that has little medals from each religion, major or minor, strung on it. This is more a statement about religious tolerance rather than my faith that all Gods do exist. You can buy one on the Internet by going to { HYPERLINK "http://www.allreligions.com" }. I was probably hopped-up on something when I put it together. I am also not ready to declare myself an atheist although my brain finds it difficult to accept things like virgins having babies, people rising from the dead (otherwise Frank Sinatra would have), arks, pillars of salt, Armageddon, seventeen virgins waiting to make love to my exploded body etc. However I do think there are localized hells – like the White House under George Bush, or FBI headquarters when that old queen J. Edgar Hoover was its Director. Yet something keeps me attached to the idea of God and it’s the oddest thing – something that happened to me when I was six. If something similar has happened in your past – then keep the faith! Here is the short version: My parents bought me a chess set. It was quite attractive. I was an especially neat kid and had my own exclusive play room in the house (now called an “entertainment room.’) I would spend hours, or what seemed like hours, playing chess against myself. One day I started to pack up the pieces in the wooden box that accompanied those handsome mahogany and birch pieces - and I found that a single white pawn was missing. I searched everywhere in that room, under everything, around everything – in my pockets and in my shoes. Finally I gave up and closed the door ready to walk the two flights of stairs up to my room. I was in tears. But for the heckuva it I knelt down and prayed in front of the closed door – Prayed that the little piece of wood would be found. Right after this I jumped to my feet and opened the door to look one last time – and I swear to you – the missing chess piece was standing upright

in the middle of the floor where I could not have possibly missed it – complete with a ray of sunlight shining directly on it! Oh geez! – How could I not believe in God? Like you might have, therefore, I too have a major problem. Will I accept my lost and then miraculously found chess piece as a true miracle from God, or was that ‘miracle’ simply performed by a M artian who ‘picked up’ on my misery? Or is God a M artian? Or was that really a chess set? I do not know – only the future will tell, or won’t. For most of you the choice about God might be clearer – but I would suggest that at least try to attend the church, mosque, temple or other overdone way-too-posh worshipping facility of your choice – especially once you retire or are told you will be dead within a year by a competent doctor. You might not find God, but you may find someone to love, or something you want to steal. If nothing else many churches have lovely pieces of art, interesting architecture, and plenty of gossip and intrigue. Not only that, but the pastor, rabbi, or imam might visit you at the hospital, and not charge too much to officiate at your funeral, or for giving you the sacraments. For women – I know that many of you could be entertained by sitting in a back pew and commenting to each other on what other women were wearing.

You could be a combo nun-nurse

Others of you might try to seduce the priest or pastor. M en – well I will not recommend seduction of nuns, but it has always been a fantasy of yours, no? This leads me to suggest to old women with moxy that they dress as nuns when they go to a bar to “get lucky.” M any men fantasize about sleeping with a nun – so try it – it might work. M en, dressing as priests? Well, that’s your decision. The true test of faith or fear is when you receive the gift or truly knowing when you are going to die. In fact few of us get this chance. That’s why priests love especially hang out in hospitals in case a fallen catholic looks for God at the very last breath. I recommend taking the safe road. Whether you’re a devil worshipper or a saint it is not a bad idea to make peace with God, Satan or both before you nod off toward your final destination. You just never know.

Chapter Eight YOUR LOVING CHILDREN Not.

“Don’t worry Mom, I can aff ord assisted living”

I am not certain what we have done to our children or what they will do when the government starts manipulating them to “take care of your parents” because the politicians are far too terrified to raise taxes and allow the government to enter the world of eldercare. I do know that our generation - The Boomers - is supposed to be the most spoiled in history – but I would bet a billion dollars that Generation X is far more tarnished yet far more intelligent than we were, or are.

The one thing many of our children – GenXers - seem to be lacking is a healthy does of “empathy” – but then again perhaps this only develops after they lose their parents – Us! Unless you are lucky enough to have had your children move near to you because they loved you so much or needed you to cook and iron for them, you are likely in the same boat as most Boomers. You will be alone for most intents and purposes. Celebrate it – don’t moan about it. Our money and our parent’s money have allowed our children to receive superior educations, travel and, darn it, settle down about as far away as possible from us as they can. Perhaps this is because they are simply exhausted from our talk of “free love” the “sixties” marijuana, cocaine, and worse - the Grateful Dead. Perhaps they are jealous. Or perhaps M icrosoft has destroyed their minds. My own daughter-in-law comes from a traditional family – and I must admit I am envious of this and the family, now supposedly also mine by marriage – and naturally green with envy over my son’s love for them. I now live, most of the year, 4,000 miles from my son, my two grandsons, and my beautiful daughter in law – and many times I regret it – but most of the time I am happy to be single-handed and in good spirits.

Wait until I tell them I’m moving in!

I am more than delighted to chat with them on the telephone or on video cameras via internet and to get – courtesy of M icrosoft in the end, hundreds of pictures of their lives as the days pass us by. In short, I am still selfish and spoiled, although I am trying. My son is now religious/ At first, I think to please his wife, then himself, and also his in-laws. This is a good thing. It can’t hurt him and my grandsons to have faith that something even more powerful than me cares about them. If I didn’t do one thing for him – it was to encourage him to explore God and religion. In fact, however, no one in my family is beating down my door to come visit me in Europe or in America either although I live in an inspiring house on a few acres of gardens and forest directly over Lake Lugano, one of the most beautiful places on earth. That’s the way it should be. Let them be guilty when I croak! Let them think they should have taken that grueling flight to visit “the old man” while he still had a mind. I will relish it when the culpability starts to hit them because then I might see at least some counterfeit adoration from them. Not that my son does not love me. He does, but in his own – “son-like” way. Daughters are consequently preferable. They somehow do seem to care about their fathers. Sons – well they are always in competition with their Dads and so this gets in the way, forever. Of course, I don’t have a daughter. Often I say to my son – well someday I would like to live with you and wife – just to see him squirm and hear him say ‘of course, Dad - when that time comes….’ Truthfully that’s the last thing I wish to do, but it’s fun to test his love. Unfortunately my kids are doing “too well” and “when the time comes” they will probably be able to afford easily to buy me an apartment in New York City or Florida where I’ll be warehoused - “just far enough away.” I don’t know about your kids – and I don’t want to know about them – but however they are, however much they love you – don’t stick them with your decomposing company – unless you are already living on the sidewalk and they insist over and over again that they want you and swear

to their priest or rabbi they will never make fun of you or want you ‘Out of this house!’ behind your back or to your face. Also, unless you have at least two weeks notice before you are actually dead – do not expect your children to be at your bedside as you drift off into eternity. They are busy! M ostly your children and grandchildren won’t have the time to visit – and if the government keeps spending money like it is – most likely the kids won’t have the money to buy a plane ticket in order to visit – nor will you. It is interesting, therefore, to phone them and tell them you have only ‘weeks to live’ – maybe once every two or three years – to get them used to being noble and therefore to rush to your side. Don’t try this ruse very often however – or you’ll fall into the ‘Old fart who cried wolf’ syndrome where even your own wife or husband won’t give a damn if you’re dying . . . again! Just prepare to die alone – or holding the hand of the Ghanaian woman who changes your bed pan. And that’s if you are lucky.

Chapter Nine YOUR GRANDCHILDREN Blessing or Curse?

My recommendation: Scare the heck out of your grand children and embarrass your children!

If you are fortunate or unlucky enough to have one, two, or a herd of grandchildren you must decide what to do with and about them as you quickly cruise toward the cemetery or crematorium.

If you have already established that your own children are worthless ingrates – then all your attention must be focused on controlling the minds of your grandchildren, slowly turning them against their parents for your amusement and their safety as well as to insure that at least they might come to your memorial service. You can always tell them, on your death bed, that you were lying – but I highly recommend messing with them until then. Not only will they love it, but you will be highly amused by the hijinx you can cause.

First trick you grandchildren into loving you best!

My own daughter-in-law, when I told her about writing this chapter, without missing a beat let me know my grandchildren would never be allowed to spend time with me – so don’t discuss this section with your kids. Keep it our little secret.

Here are some suggestions for you when you are alone with your grandchildren, and especially when they are at your house for a “vacation” while your son and his wife are in St. M oritz skiing.

For grandchildren between 4 and 7 years old:

2 3

Teach them that the family dog or cat is dangerous and that most certainly sneaks into their beds at night and tries to suck the breath out of their lungs. Teach them that this very thing happened to their poor unfortunate ‘Aunt Lois’ who died at a very young age from a lung-sucking and freshly neutered tail-less Siamese cat with three paws. Teach them that their mother/father once spent ten years in jail for murdering a baby who would not stop crying. For children still in diapers, teach them that it is okay to paint with poop - on the walls.

“Let’s look up another dirty word Debbie”

Use the F-word a great deal around them. They will parrot you at the most inopportune times in front of their parents, teachers, and pastors. WARN ING: Try to control yourself feeding them beer, wine, marijuana-stoked cookies, brownies or worse. This is NOT a good idea as you may create a toddler-holic, who will grow up to be a bum. That’s really going too far. Tell the kids that their parents never went to school because they were too dim-witted, or because they had to work in the mortuary once owned by you and your husband/wife. Show them the absolute hilarity of substantial food fighting at the dining room table. Be sure to demonstrate that turning over bowls of cereal (No hot soup!) on the baby’s head is the most fun of all – and that chewing up food and throwing it on the ceiling is even better!

Tell the baby you have to sleep in his/her crib or you will “Lose your mind”

Teach them this trick - To hide under their beds or somewhere they cannot be found in the early morning and not to come out no matter how much their mother continues to scream and cry their names. Add that opening their window and ripping out the screen is a good touch to convince mom and dad they have been kidnapped or JonBeneted.

Teach them to wet their beds purposely if they are pissed off at their parents â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially their mothers.

10 Serve them horrible food and tell them that their parents insisted you give it to them.

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your frigginâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lunch kiddies.

For grandchildren between 8 and 12 1

Teach them to drive and make copies of their parentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s car keys for them.

Teach them how to cheat on tests using wireless blue tooth earpieces hooked up to your computer where they can whisper the questions to you over SKYPE and you can provide the answers using GOOGLE-TALK

. 3

Teach them about birth control and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell their parents.

Tell them that if they don’t believe you about how babies are born – to ask their parents to “watch.”

Buy them each a puppy that will grow into a very large dog – I recommend giant schnauzers or St. Bernards because “they are as cute as puppies.”

Tell them that watching television ten hours a day is far better for them then reading, sports, or anything.

Teach them to say anything that is on their minds at all times – especially in church.

Tell them that their great grandfather was Hitler on the other side of the family of course.

Teach them that eating steak well done is something only gypsies do.

10 Buy them new clothes that you know your son or daughter will hate.

Chapter Ten S POUS ES Getting rid of them without paying criminal defense lawyers. As you grow older and your spouse survives along with you, you will begin to realize that it is high time to either get a divorce or do away with your husband or wife. This usually occurs around the time one turns 68, but it is known to happen earlier. Some signs that it time to get rid of you old husband include finding him sitting on the back porch masturbating, or cutting down all the trees on the property because he ‘hates squirrels.’

If your husband greets you in your bedroom like this – It’s time

However, usually the last straw is when your loved one begins wetting the marital bed. Some married couples however have what seems to be unlimited sticking power (no pun intended). The wife or husband dutifully strips the bed every morning – washes everything - and after awhile, although too late, decides that a rubber sheet might be a good idea. Then it happens – instead of urine you find a rolled-over turd in your bed. Now is the time to either unload your ‘darling’ in a Home, or simply tell him or her you’re going out shopping and never return. One need not feel too guilty at this point – defecating in bed or in one’s clothes is a sure sign one isn’t going to be around much longer anyway, or worse; that instead of washing sheets and pants – you’ll be emptying colostomy bags for the rest of your life. Whichever the case, it might be smart – if you are the stricken one, to simply refuse the colostomy and die sooner much to the relief of your ‘loved one’. If you have to get rid of your spouse. The best way to do this is to invite him/her on a cruise. The rest is illustrated below:

Step One: G et spouse close to deck rail while joking around

Step Two: Push spouse in ocean when no one is looking â&#x20AC;&#x201C; check for video cameras first!

Step Three: Relax and compose yourself, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re finally, finally alone!

Step Four: Celebrate! Then look for your GoldDagger!

CHAPTER ELEVEN GETTING IN TOUCH WITH “O LD” FRIENDS Are you crazy?

Typical â&#x20AC;&#x153;Old!â&#x20AC;? friend

As you grow older you will inescapably be drawn to looking up old friends unless you still live in the town where you were born and all your friends from school are either there or already dead. My advice? Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. th When I was in my 59 year I began to do just this. For some reason, one day after thinking that I would probably be dead within a decade or less I decided to make a list of every friend I ever had, and every girlfriend I ever had. Naturally the fascination with the women took over and soon I had a list of perhaps 200 women who I have loved, made love to, or just fooled around with during the past 45 years.

Looking at the list, I began to scratch off the ones that I probably could not find or did not want to find. These included hookers, drunken women I had met in hotel bars never knowing even their names, girls who smelled weird, and a host of others that I did not want to see again because I either owed them money, or they owed me money.

I knew I didn’t like him in high school!

The list of potential contactees grew smaller. I was down to perhaps a dozen women I would like to chat with or see at least once more before I croaked. Another twenty of so men were also on the list. The first victim, for some reason, was a woman I met in my office when I was young and between wives. I won’t use her name – but she will know who she is (if she is still alive). Anyway this girl and I had a lot of fun. She was sexually charged and crazier than a bat. She played Muppets records while having sex. She was also very bright. We both worked in politics. I knew her well enough to know her mother and father also, but had lost track of M iss X over the last twenty years. Lo and behold I called her mother’s old number in the San Fernando Valley – and guess what – She answered! Yes, the mother answered – “she is still alive” I thought, relieved - and we had a nice chat. She had always liked me. She told me that “X” was married and living close by.

What was surprising is that she actually gave me X’s telephone number. I immediately phoned expecting X to be stunned and happy, to fall silent, and then to tell me she still loved me and that we should meet as soon as possible. What happened instead was the following:

“Hello….X?” “Yeah (child screaming in the background)” “Hi….do you recognize my voice?” “No…is this a salesman ‘cause I am very busy right now….” “No, it’s me, Jeff Koopersmith!’ “Who... oh …Jeff…. What are you calling me for?... And, the conversation pretty much ended there. I had never heard such a rude response from someone who used to; well do that with glee – and for a year or more, no less. Now I meant nothing to her, but then again – where had I been the past two decades? My comeuppance. Next I tried, if you can believe it, my first girlfriend from sixth grade. I knew she had gotten married because my first wife and I visited her in New York once when we were all young and stupid. Her husband was not in town at the time.

You couldn’t play chess then – you can’t play now!

She had married an “Olympic athlete” as she put it to me the week before her wedding when we were naked beside each other in an uptown mediocre hotel in the city. He had kind of a French last name – but to be honest I was jealous and did not want to remember it – nor think about it as I was sure I was giving her the last ‘great’ sex she would ever have.

At any rate, I lost touch with her as well – for thirty years. Finally a mutual friend of ours told me she had been divorced many years ago and was a teacher now in Long Island. He gave me her number, which he had obtaineed at a high school reunion, and I, like a jerk, phoned her. I remembered “Y” so well – big breasts, a red headed opera singer, and a voice that could give you an erection in ten seconds. She answered with that same deep-throaty voice and I couldn’t wait to see her. Well, I did. We met, romantically, in the parking lot of our old elementary school. She was driving a big old Buick Le Sabre filled with old soda cups and hamburger wrappings and I, or course, was in my Porsche. Gotcha! I thought to myself. Then she got out of the car. Well, she sort of fell out of her car and rolled across the tarmac –all 450 pounds of her. I must say, she was still wonderfully nice, and our Thai lunch together at some local dive – the closest eatery I could find - was amusing – really lovely, as she told me about her retarded daughter and her insane husband – who turned out to be an Olympic “hopeful” -- in target shooting!

Don’t you screw with me old woman! I don’t care if you were my 1 st grade teacher!

There was no question that she was ready to pop into any nearby motel right then and there to “relive the past” as she put it. It was awkward, but I got away, and then felt like shit afterwards – who was I – M ark Spitz? I tried a few more of these girls - One, Penny Jamitz, who I loved from afar beginning at eight years old I could never find. I thought she had become a violinist. I guess not – and I’ve never found a trace of her to this day. So Penny – if you’re out there. Call my publisher – if this gets published. I need to see you once more before I die. I gave up calling the old girlfriends and so started on my list of men friends. For some reason this list was far more productive. I found my best friend Freddy, other friends that I went to high school, college, and law school with – and most of them were very friendly and some us got together over dinner etc. However the fact is that whoever said ‘you can never go back’ is right. And when we split with our girlfriends and men friends we should have remembered this and made sure that we could go back - If that is possible. So, don’t go phoning everyone you know just because you think you’ll be dead soon. Frankly no one cares. Unless you are calling people to give them money most of them won’t respond the way you hope, if at all. However, I do plan, if allowed to know exactly when I’ll be dead, to call them all again and beg them to come to my funeral. This is also true for your more distant relatives. If you don’t see them regularly, don’t phone them unless you desperately need some money or a place to stay. Believe me. Today, only in Italy or Spain do cousins care about other cousins. M ost of your uncles and aunts are already dead – and even they yet alive they most likely didn’t care much about you in the first place. However, if one of them is living – go visit – they might appreciate it - if they recognize who you are. M aybe you can hit them up for a “loan.”

CHAPTER TWELVE FUN LIVING IN TRAILERS OR TENTS You might not have a choice

Senior Citizen Public Housing for the 21st Century

Here’s a clue. If you think you’ve saved enough for retirement you are, in all probability, insane. Looking into the future you can count on several setbacks. First, interest rates will soar after any president leaves office, but worse – taxes will increase about $40 thousand per capita to pay for the various M iddle East wars we are and might be in which will have to be paid off quickly - by us. If Mr. Bush is already gone – it makes little difference. Taxes always rise when any president leaves office. This means that no one will be able to buy your house – the one thing you were counting on to pay your way toward the grave. If you do sell it, the buyers are apt will pay you less for it than you paid in 1978. Congress will also certainly change the social security retirement age – most likely to 95 - so you won’t be getting any social security until you don’t care any more. Same for M edicare and M edicaid. The simple truth is that there is not enough money on earth to support 80 million old fogies, and our children and grandchildren might understandably revolt against a 75% income tax rate and demand that the elderly be put in camps – sort of like those the Palestinians live in at Lebanon. There are many ways, however, to handle these ensuing economic problems – like where to live, but the best solution is to heavily insure one of you –husband or wife - for one or two million dollars. If you are not married then insure your dog or cat – you might get away with it.

Pleasant Trailer Lif e in the Northeast

If you are married - You must do this now. Every day you wait your premiums will increase drastically. It’s best to pick the unhealthiest of you to apply for this new insurance policy. The premiums, which will be thousands a month will pay off for the surviving spouse, who instead of being shipped in an open truck to Palmdale, California or a “M ojave Desert Tent City” will instead be able to buy a house on the beach in Bermuda and live the good life for a month or two before he or she croaks from missing you. If the insured spouse continues to live after you’ve run out of money to pay those high premiums, then either he or she has to commit suicide, or you have to kill them. If you don’t have the stomach for insuring then killing off your spouse or hoping against hope he or she will die after the policy takes force, you can always buy a small home in Albania – or better yet – in Siberia. The last time we checked, you can buy a one or two room apartment with a bathroom “on the property” for less than $2,000.00 in M oldova. Forget about Phoenix, Arizona – the old standby for elderly people with no means. Those days are gone. Already people are flocking to Arizona in order to die of heatstroke as quickly as possible and therefore leave the children at least a cause of action against the State for wrongful death of a parent!

There are however, places right in the good old U SA where you can buy a small apartment – even a house, for less than $9,000.00, or better yet LAND – on which to pitch your tent or park your Winnebago. Check Realtor.com and you’ll see I am not lying.

Your $9,000 dream home! Look at all that Green Space!

Of course these “homes” are often made of fiberboard or cardboard and have no windows, but what the heck – you won’t be living there, or living at all for very long. You will be surviving – a big difference. Then, there is the problem that most of these despicable houses are in the “middle of nowhere” – for instance perhaps 230 miles from the nearest gas station or grocery store – so the chance of getting a part time job or buying food is about zero. Take up hunting – preferably with a bow and arrow or slingshot. The other problem is that these ‘homes’ or barren land usually have no water, electric, sewer, or gas connections. In short – you might as well be living in the Gobi Desert. So if its land you want – buy a VERY old Winnebago – and hopefully you will be able to go “for a drive” now and then if you can afford fuel. You can always park it at Wal M art after nine. Absent that, buy a camel and get used to eating rattle snake and using spider venom for sleeping pills.

His new permanent swinging bachelor pad bedroom!

There is another choice however – one that for some reason has not become popular – It’s called the ECHO house (Elder Cottage Housing Opportunities) and frankly AARP has not found a way to capitalize on this idea, so even though they mention it, they don’t tell you much more about it except that the idea is to install an ECHO in your kid’s back yard! Sure! I can just see it now. You children live in a Philadelphia row house. The back yard is 12x12 feet. Wow! What a house you’ll have. You see – this is sort of like a trick. Most of you already know that your kids are not inviting you to live with them anytime soon. So some real dimwits have figured out that this is the way to convince them. “Son, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind if I attached a little “cottage” to your house that would allow me to live close to you, but not with you? It would have its own hot plate and picnic hamper, a chemical toilet – everything I need. The only thing I’d have to do is hook up to your electric and water – that’s all – and I’d be glad to reimburse you for my portion of the utility bills.” “But Dad …..” “Son, all I want is to live closer to you, to be near you and what’s-her-name and of course little Tommy and Betty.”

“Dad that’s Timmy and Bobbi” “I know silly – that was a joke.” “Well, let me think about it and talk it over with Laura” “Who’s Laura, your psychiatrist? Look it’ll be like I’m not even ther ey. I’ll never visit without phoning first. I won’t even answer the door if the kids try to visit. What do you say boy?” “Dad, I said I’d talk it over with the family.” “Well, okay, but I certainly didn ’t say that to your moth er when sh e got pregnant with you!”

Dream retirement?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DOCTORS They can’t save you, but they can make you feel better about croaking.

You don’t really want to be resuscitated do you?

My first advice to you about doctors is this: Do not see a doctor unless you are brought to the hospital in an ambulance with lights and sirens blaring. Otherwise there is little point unless you happen to need hefty prescriptions for hallucinogens, marijuana, or very special pain pills designed to make you think you’re still young, sharp, and good looking. Other than these reasons, and perhaps for manic depression or other psychotic diseases, there is no other reason to see a doctor – unless of course you want to know just how sick you truly are.

For instance, I am certain that I am slowly dying of:

1. Lung and esophageal cancer from smoking 2. Stomach cancer – from swallowing smoke while getting blow jobs. 3. A variety of yet undiagnosed venereal diseases.

4. Depression born from growing old. st 5. Anxiety from growing old and having to drive in the 21 century.

6. Heart disease from eating only meat and no vegetables or fruit for most of my life. ( I once lived on Velveeta cheese for a year and half!) 7. Other stuff I won’t mention. My choice is never to go to my internist –who is the best doctor on earth by the way – and ask him to give me every scan there is in order to find all these diseases. The only way I would do this is if the tests resulted in his declaration that I need to go on a disability pension immediately if not sooner. Otherwise – I ain’t goin’. The view your doctor has of the elderly most of ten.

Face it. Doctors are for young people. They do wonderful things for our youth like getting women pregnant who can’t; fixing broken legs from too-fast skiing in Aspen; sewing up cops who’ve been in real bar fights; providing physical therapy while you are suing someone who rear-ended you in the Neiman M arcus parking lot. Stuff like that. But old people usually can’t hope to get pregnant, ski the Rockies or the Alps, get into fistfights (except in New York City), or drive much.

There is also a philosophical side here. The question you must first answer is whether you really want to extend your otherwise miserable life simply to see your granddaughter endure her first confirmation, bat mitzvah, pregnancy, acid trip, or arrest.

The answer, if you think hard, is NO! So go with the flow. Tell your kids the doctor says you are in as good a shape as you were at 45. This wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be a lie, because you probably were already developing all these diseases before then.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN PLAS TIC S URGERY - To go with your plastic diaper pants

The woman pictured above is nearly 90 years old. Hard to believe isn’t it?

No, it’s not hard to believe at all. Here’s some quick advice. Once you’ve reached 60, proceed with a great deal of caution before you visit your local synthetic surgeon looking, stupidly, to recapture your youth. Hey! You don’t have any youth left. Accept it. Revel in it. Eat a few pizzas or a gallon of your favorite ice cream. M en, as of this writing, are not so quickly rushing to have their “eyes done” or faces stretched. Some are – but most of them are Gay, and that’s allowed. If you must pursue the impossible – then try and refrain from major plastic surgery. How about just getting rid of few wrinkles and line with a shot of BOTOX – a deadly poison that will paralyze the nerves in your face so that those frown lines will relax. Oh yes – they will still be there, but maybe you could go as far as “peeling” your face as well – a nice term for burning off the dermis with acid.

Exhibit One: Showing you how youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll look af ter surgery!

Botox Hijinx!

If you do go for the full face job then - for Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sake â&#x20AC;&#x201C; make them concentrate on your turkey neck as well. There is nothing weirder or more off-putting then looking across the table at a woman who looks like Shirley Temple with a neck strikingly similar to that of the Queen M other.

Whatever you do – do not, do not have liposuction. Are you insane? Just stop feeding yourself. You’ll save two ways. And, if you’re fat enough for Lipo, then you will have to endure even more surgery to trim the tons of stretched out putrid skin that will be left over from your blob days.

Lipo! – For someone who does not need it

Just don’t do it. No matter what you do surgically people will still know you are older than M ethuselah. Why – because of your hands stupid. Your hands, with all those veins, age spots, (sorry Porcelana) and crinkled up paper thin skin will give you away every time. Why do you think M adonna has started to wear M ichael Jackson gloves all the time? One more thing. I know that big fat juicy lips are in since Angelina Jolie became a star – but Angelina is also young and beautiful in all other ways. You are not – so please – do not have your local butcher inject fat extracted from your fat ass into your lips to make you look more sensuous. In the end you will look like Ronald M acdonald.

Angelina goes too far!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Insurance Cash it in stupid!

As I wrote earlier – the only reason you need insurance is to live after your spouse dies, or from guilt from screwing up your children so badly that the only job they can get is flipping burgers – and not at a major chain. Forget about supporting your spouse after you die – she or he has already spent all your money anyway. So drop the guilt. You already did enough for your kids – bought them roller skates, made them go to junior high, and helped them cheat on their Army physical. Stop paying those premiums on whole life policies that your stupid neighbor Ricardo sold you in 1963; cash in those annuities, and redeposit your CDs in Google stock. If you have to ask what Google is – then you really need to do this. Insurance on the car? – Same thing. What do you care if you kill or maim someone? By the time the case comes up in court you’ll be dead anyway. If you still have a conscious after being screwed over most of your life – then take out a small policy that will pay for your victims’ burial. That’s more than enough.

What will they care? – They’ll be dead or permanently crippled anyway.

Boy! Am I glad I’m not paying those high insurance bills anymore! M edical insurance is another waste of time. Has it ever dawned on you that millions of Americans with low paying or no jobs at all get better medical treatment than you do? That’s because hospitals and doctors actually do treat people who are broke and guilty billionaires make certain those hospitals have better equipment than Cedars. You just have to have patience. What’s better than sitting in an urban emergency room reading three year old issues of Children’s Digest? Nothing. In fact, sitting in the emergency room can be an excellent social event. You can make friends – meet a girl, and chat away all day about your physical complaints or prowess – depending upon the age and sex of your audience.

Now – for those of you who own homes. Well – that’s a different story. Get a lot of insurance on the house and its contents – and do it now. There is nothing that can save you from the poor house faster than a huge insurance payout after torching your own home.

FIRE! There is no need to hire someone to do this. In fact it is very dangerous to hire an arsonist because they will either tell the police that you hired them, or blackmail you for the rest of your life. If you do hire an arsonist you must be prepared to murder him after he does the deed. All you really need do is set up your house as a fire trap, leaving old newspapers all over the floors and stacked against the walls. This is what old people are expected to do! I once had a friend who worked at a mortuary in order to get through college. He told me that elderly people normally stop throwing out trash after they turn 75 or 80 anyway. That’s your cover. Just keep stacking up those flammables all over your house – in every room. This might take a year – but it will turn out to be a very productive one once you burn the place down along with your wife’s hideous collection of porcelain poodles.

Plug at least eleven appliances into one extension cord near the most flammable part of your house. Leave your lawnmower’s gas can in the living room – “there so you could clean the parts of your motorized wheel chair easier” – and then just drop a cigarette- not on the gas can you idiot – but on the stack of newspaper. Chances are the whole house will go up in flames in three seconds – especially if you do this at about noon when most firemen are out to lunch of screwing their girlfriends in cheap motels. In rural areas – just don’t call the fire department. In any case – don’t call them until the house is fully engaged in fire – tell them you were taking a nap outside in your hammock listening to your I-pod. If you don’t have a hammock – a lawn chair or old bedspread will do.

A new lease on life!

Then, take that nice fat insurance check and buy a studio apartment near the beach in some country that applauds itself for having socialized medicine. Then relax.

Chapter S ixteen DOING YOURS ELF IN Not the greatest idea – but here’s a few simple ideas that might do the trick.

Envisioning yourself as the “Last G unslinger” can be dangerous

Okay. There are a lot of liberals out there – especially in Holland – who think you should have the right to do yourself in. In short – to kill yourself. I think conservatives have one major problem with this – Too many of us flower children crave “assisted suicide” ala Dr. Jack Kevorkian – now a convicted felon who just got out of jail. Conservatives say, ‘Look if you don’t have the guts to kill yourself on your own – then you should stay alive.’ This makes some sense. Even Kevorkian made some BIG mistakes. So I don’t recommend that you kill yourself unless you have the courage to do it yourself – and don’t listen to the people who tell you that committing suicide does not take courage. It certainly does. (At least I think it does because to be honest I’ve never had the chance to interview someone who has successfully accomplished his or her own suicide.)

Back to Dr. K. In my opinion, one needs only to look at Kevorkian’s paintings to know he is probably insane – so the one rule here is to never trust an Armenian doctor who is also an assisted suicide specialist. Otherwise Armenians, doctors or not, are the most trustworthy people on earth. So again – if you’re going to do It – do It yourself. There are many considerations when contemplating a well thought out suicide. First, there are the other members of the family, or Philippino servants, who may still live in your house. Believe me – if you care about them, you don’t want your family to find your corpse.

Chances are your kids won’t pay attention if you hang yourself – but you never know.

Then again – if you hate your brood, or even one of them, then it will be fairly easy to make sure that he or she is the one to ‘find the body’ and puke.

Even better, if you read enough mystery novels you might be able to commit suicide and make it appear like the person you loathe most of all murdered you! This is revenge at it sweetest – revenge from the grave. I can’t tell you how to do this – to have someone else blamed for your death – but if you read enough you will find a way, or just watch re-re-runs of “M atlock” you may be able to pick up some tips. Frankly your only interest here is to achieve your goal without any pain or fear. That is a tall order. I can tell you this – don’t try to off yourself in any of the following ways: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Hanging yourself by standing on a giant ice cube. Shooting yourself with a beebee gun Taking twenty-three bottles of aspirin Eating at Taco Bell after 11 PM Hiring a hit man

Remember, every institution in society, for some stupid reason, is dedicated to making sure that you do not kill yourself. One wonders why, but that’s the way it is. The Church, the Suicide Hot Line, the Justice Department, the AMA, Oprah – all have decided they will not allow you to do yourself in. This, of course, does not make much sense, yet in most states even attempting suicide is against the law, perhaps because it’s annoying to others?

Pills are not the way go – unless they are made in Mr. Putin’s Kremlin office

So face it, you are up against a lot of people, and God – all of whom want you to stay alive – no matter what. This alone is a reason to keep on living and give up thoughts of offing yourself. However, if you insist – then here are some suggestions to gain your objective without a lot hoopla: 1. Re-read Shakespeare, out loud, for several hours in a VFW bar 2. Go to a M adonna Concert after taking Cialis 3. While waiting in the security line at the airport, rip open your shirt and start yelling – Allah akbar; Allah akbar – I am a human bomb and a great martyr! 4. Drive through any ghetto in a convertible Porsche yelling Nigger Nigger, Beaner Beaner, Spic Spic, and Kike Kike! 5. Book a hotel in Anbar Province, Iraq wearing a Star of David 6. Book a hotel in Kabul and pretend you’re a Russian 7. Kill a whale with a high power rifle while on a Save the Whales cruise. 8. Wear a doctor’s coat and enter an abortion clinic carrying a bloody scalpel while Born Again Christian right-to-lifers are having a colossal demonstration. 9. Pull a gun on the a California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop – and make sure it’s not loaded – that’ll teach him. This is called “death by cop.” 10. Where a baby polar bear coat to a PETA fundraiser in San Francisco.

You potential “helper” – Just wear a baby panda purse!

CHAPTER S EVENTEEN

Euthanasia WHAT ARE YOU NUTS ?! Don’t Sign Anything!

Tip Never trust an Armenian doctor named Kevorkia n with your quic k demise .

Let me tell you a fact: Euthanasia is just another word for murder/suicide. Either you are killing you, or someone else is. And don’t fall for the “passive” or “active” argument. There is nothing passive about turning off you oxygen supply in the hospital or the local Holiday Inn. What’s natural is to die from something – not to make something that will make you die. Period. And don’t think I’m a holy roller. If God does exist, believe me he doesn’t believe in Euthanasia – He’s torturing you for a reason. Whatever you do, do not even think about carrying an organ-donor card or worse – permission to allow you to die. What are you nuts! Ask yourself this – Who will gain if the hospital you find yourself in decided to turn off the oxygen? 1. 2. 3. 4.

Your heirs The nearest Organ Broker The Funeral Home The Casket M anufacturer

5. The Attending Physician who can still bill a few thousand dollars – Who’s gonna know? 6. Life and Health Insurance Companies 7. The hospital that caused your illness 8. The doctor who screwed up your surgery I must say that the folklore surrounding euthanasia is enough to make Dr. M engele hysterical. Who on earth came up with the garbage? I’ll tell you who: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

People who can’t take a little pain Heirs Funeral Homes Local, state and federal government Casket M anufacturers Insurance Companies People who need your kidneys to live

It doesn’t take several courses in nuclear physics to figure out that the only person who does not benefit from you early-than-necessary death is You. Yet the news media, most religious leaders save the Catholic Church (even they sometimes wink and nod), do-gooders, people with liver cancer, and transplant surgeons, and Jane Fonda are constantly mind suckering us to “let it go” donate your throat to a chain smoker, allow us to kill you – It’s the best thing. Huh? Hey – while I admit I am going to die – I don’t trust anyone to make that decision for me – not even me. Here is what I suggest. Carry an “Are you Crazy” card. It should read like this: Are you Crazy? DO NOT EUTHANIZE – AND YOU CAN’T HAVE MY ORG ANS! I, __________________________, no matter what I say or what my closest relatives tell you, do not want to donate my organs to anyone – not even the Pope. I need my organs – even in death, because without them I will feel naked and afraid. _________ If I have terminal cancer, am brain dead according to you, in intense pain for years, will not eat, and will not open my eyes, you do not have permission – ever – and for any reason, to turn off my life support system. If you do, I have left instructions with my lawyer to have you prosecuted for murder – to the full extent of U.S. or Sharia law – and count on it!

____________________________, DATE __________, _________ Signature WITNESSETH ___________________________________________ { SEAL – NOTARY REPUBLIC } -----------------------------------------------FOLD HERE-------------------------------------------------¡CNO EUTHANIZE - Y USTED NO PUEDE TENER MIS ÓRGANOS! I, __________________________, no importa qué digo o qué mis parientes más cercanos le dicen, no desean donar mis órganos a cualquier persona - para no igualar al papa. Necesito mis órganos - incluso en muerte, porque sin ellos me sentiré _________ desnudo y asustado Si tengo cáncer terminal, los muertos del cerebro de la según usted, en el dolor intenso por años, no comerán, y no se abrirán mis ojos, usted no tiene permiso - siempre - y por cualquier razón, a dé v uelta apagado a mi sistema de ay uda de v ida. ¡Si usted lo hace, tengo instrucciones izquierdas con mi abogado tenerle procesadas para el asesinato - totalmente de ESTADOS UNIDOS o de la ley de Sharia - y contar en ella! Firma Del _________ _____________________de la FECHA __________, De ________ ____________________________, ___________________________________________ WITNESSETH {SELLO - REPÚBLICA DEL NOTARIO}

You have my permission to copy this card. M ake sure you give a copy to all family members, your local hospital, and your doctor. Also, to be sure – have the card notarized and then sealed in plastic wearing it around your neck at all times like a backstage pass!

CHAPTER MUS IC AND DANCING TRY TO CONTROL YOURS ELF

If you live in Jersey City – this is ridiculous

I am not sure why, but the 1950s fad of learning ballroom dancing has raised its dreadful face again – and amongst we Boomers – not the youth. I have my suspicions why though. Remember when you sat in your parents’ living room and watched that greasy European fellow with tight black toreador pants teaching your M om and Dad the Samba? Well, at that age you thought your parents were older than the pyramids – so now – you think you’re that old too – and it’s time to learn the Samba yourself! I must tell you that not only the most important love of my life is now totally hooked on ballroom dancing to the point that she’s installed a dance floor in her suburban manse but she also travels extensively – not to compete in dance, but just to watch. I am convinced she is losing it. First of all, she has always been a terrific dancer. Second, she’s even older than

I am. Third, like me she was schooled in cotillion dance in school as a younger girl.

“Pajama Dancing” is the latest craze among B oomers!

Is this an alternative way to meet men? Women? Argentinians? I don’t know. What I do know is that there is nothing funnier than watching old people dance – unless they are your parents or grandparents – then of course, you cry, the subject of castles in the sky. M aybe that’s it. My friends who are now taking these dance lessons, want to make sure their children recall them dancing together even in their old age, and their diapers.

“Darling, do you think there’s a changing table in the Lady’s?” I see nothing wrong with taking dance lessons at any age, but I think hopeful octogenarians should guard against injury – to the soul and the body. Dancing is strenuous, although less so than marathon running. However doing a quick-step can knock the breath out of the fittest 70 year old or worse, overload your diaper. In Europe, and especially in Italy in Spain, old men who can dance use their exceptional talents to attract sixteen year old brides. This is especially true in Spanish and Italian islands that pay little attention to the Vatican. Here, dance lessons for the old are a must if you’re a man. For women there are, of course, ‘late-bloomer’ castanet lessons followed by the far more arduous Flamenco and Tarantella instruction popular in both nations. The sad fact of course is that old women dancing either are usually hauled off to local loony ward.

In Prolapsiano, Italy old men attract young girls with a waltz.

Finally there is the square dance. Perhaps, in the third grade, you and your classmate doh-see-dohed around the school gym to the delight of transplanted Oklahoman teachers looking for a good job in M anhattan, but square dancing is definitely not for the faint of heart – especially if you have recurring angina. Aside from health issues, square dancing requires following the rules and listening and understanding shouted instructions from the caller. You should take this seriously. Most people, as they age, begin to lose their hearing. This puts you at a distinct disadvantage – especially when the order is to “swing your partner” and you think the caller said “Fling your

partner.â&#x20AC;? I have seen this happen, with the woman smashed against the bleachers to the astonishment of her partner. Another item of consideration are the clothes one has to don in order to be cool when square dancing. It never fails to stun me when the elevator doors open at the local M arriott Hotel and two eight year olds jump out at me doing their best imitation of Roy Rogers and his wife. The cowboy hats are bad enough â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but those gigantic crinoline skirts are a danger in themselves.

CHAPTER GAY BOOMERS

Go ahead and laugh, but there arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t many groups in America or Europe who have suffered more than gay men and women Boomers. The only group that may top them in defending bigotry are gay black people. Unfortunately gay men and women require a modicum of special attention in this book. For one thing, they are generally more tasteful. For another, they are sometimes more frightened of things like dying than the average hetero human because they actually have hearts and emotions.

My G OD! It’s like staring in a mirror. I think I’m in love!

M any of you gay men have found significant others, and some – lucky enough to live in the right places – have even been married and have children. You know how to handle the special tribulations of writing wills and making sure your partner and your family gets your stuff after you pass on, but make sure you have the right lawyer if you don’t. There are yet a lot of people in government and in the pulpit that delight in harassing gay men and women – even in death, Enough said. Now for the fun part.

Please don’t wear tee shirts like this in the Red States

Look. If you live in a small New England town (except Provincetown of course), or worse – in the San Fernando Valley – you don’t want to go around wearing “We Love Dykes” tee shirts as you grow older. It’s now that people hate Lesbians – but they do tend to have little patience with OLD lesbians – I think it’s something about an over-active imagination. Think of it as the gay flip side of watching your grandparents having sex. If you are getting close to dying, you want people to like you. This doesn’t mean you have to pretend you are straight – or any crap like that. It just means that despite your young-at-heartedness, it’s time to stop shouting about something you could never change anyway – your sexual preference – and instead shout about life – and ENJOY it!

May-December 31 st couple

The best thing about dying and being gay is that your partner will most often stick with you. While gay men and women may tend to stray a bit more publicly than do heterosexuals, they are also more prone to loyalty and compassion. There are many gay couples with one fairly old, and one very young partner. For the usual reasons, these M ay-December hook-ups are sometimes frightening to the older partner – especially when he or she gets the bad news from Cedars laboratory. Gay people are, if truth be told, afraid of desertion. Perhaps this comes from so much of the Puritan world turning their backs on them, or perhaps it’s a matter of elevated sensitivity. Whatever the reason – I have some advice for the older partner in a gay relationship – Threaten to cut off the charge cards. My friends tell me it works like a charm. Perhaps almost all the chapters in this book deserve special “gay” footnotes, but I’m not certain. There isn’t any difference between being gay or not when Father Time begins to toll his bell to make way for the Angel of Death. The only matter I can think of is planning the funeral. A bit of advice – Hire a “funeral planner” – they are sure to maintain a tasteful atmosphere and not find themselves going “over the top” when this is not called for.

G o for it! Even you are attractive to someone! B ut drop the clothes pins.

The toughest time for a gay man especially is when “the looks” are all but gone. While gay men are much more willing to sweat it out in the gym every day, time will get you in the end. Take heart. There are thousands of guys just like you all over the world and certainly in world’s gay capitols. Like all of us however, gay people grow a bit more conservative as they pass 65 – so you might consider dropping the nipple rings, leather jocks, and other paraphernalia you’ve probably forgotten how to use anyway.

Your best shot at a nightmare!

The way you were!

That ain’t all I’m fishin’ for!

Shall I push your now darling?

G od. Will you look at that dress!

CHAPTER Driving

There apparently comes a time when every person must surrender his or her driver’s license to the state because they become incompetent to drive for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s because you can’t move your legs anymore – although even this is curable with hand controls. Sometimes it’s because you are just plain crazy, or always drunk, or can’t see above the steering wheel logo because you have shrunk. Whichever the case – don’t worry. Just keep driving anyway. One of two things will happen. You will both be pulled over and driven home by a cop, or you will be killed in a head-on collision. Either way, you win. If you don’t have a car, no problem - Simply steal your neighbor’s car – especially if you are over 80 years old. You probably know your neighbors pretty well by now and you know where they put their car keys. You can just open their kitchen door and grab them.

If you live with your kids – even better. They probably have two or three cars, and they aren’t going to call the cops to report that you stole their car. Just leave a note – saying something like “Just went out for a quart of smack” – with a smiley face next to it.

If they do call the cops – they will just tell them you ‘shouldn’t be driving’ – and then – presto the cops will pick you up and drive you home. So drive all you like. It’s fun. Another way to steal a car is to stand in front of cheap restaurant and pretend you are a valet parking attendant. That way you can steal a car that no one wants and also pocket a tip to pay for the gas. Don’t worry – your age will protect you. Remember, all the traffic court judges are also Boomers – they’ll understand.

CHAPTER Clothing

“Surfer Boy, oh my little surf er boy….”

Face it, when you’re old you really don’t need a lot of clothing because you don’t go anywhere except to the newspaper rack to buy a copy of “Interview” or “Rolling Stone” or to the pharmacy for more laxatives. All you need for that is a track suit made of light cotton in the summer and heavy cotton for the winter. Buy just one pair of “running” shoes – they will last a “lifetime” if you know what I mean. For women, clothing may have become a right. For you ladies with modest funds, perhaps you need to polish your shoplifting skills. One problem with this is that at first you will find that you have 345 bras in your bedroom because bras are easy to steal. You just go to the store without a bra on, rip off the labels, put it on, and walk out. Same for panties. When it comes to that nice new silk dress from Hermes – well this could be problem. However, there are tricks here as well. The best thing is to rent or steal a car first.

Drive up to any Hermes store and just park in front – and leave the motor running. Salespeople at Hermes think that anyone who walks in to that shop wants either to buy a three hundred dollar scarf for their latest girlfriend, or is, by definition, fabulously wealthy.

Try to look at your backside in the mirror?

People who are truly wealthy don’t usually dress up to go shopping because they are petrified of being robbed – so just wear a fake gold Rolex you can buy in any city for about fifty bucks – and your usual track suit – preferably one you don’t want any longer.

G reat for playing G in Rummy – with your buddies only

Choose a three or four thousand dollar ‘cute little silk dress’ – colorful and then tell the salesgirl you want to look at the fabric in “natural light.” As you walk out the door – turn toward the glass front and twirl around in front of the window – supposedly looking at the dress carefully in the

reflection, but in actuality fishing your car keys out of your bra. Step on it! If the car is stolen they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be able to trace it to you. If not â&#x20AC;&#x201C; take the license plates off before you stop. Simple.

Oh no.

Chapter WRITING YOUR LAST WILL AND TESTAM ENT

G randpa, we’re waiting…

M any people know what a Will is, but most do not know what a Testament is – save those of you who know where to find your Bible in a hurry. The best thing to do is to write your will yourself – and not on a typewriter. The best reason to write it by hand is that your entire family can sue each other over it pretending it is unreadable. This is called a holographic. The family always thinks they can prove you were crazy far easier if you never saw a lawyer – or bought a “Will Kit” off of E-Bay and then wrote it by hand. They are wrong. A ‘testament’ despite anything you read in your six dollar dictionary is not just another word for ‘will’ although it could be. A testament is also a statement of belief, in fact what you might want to say to the still-living after you are dead, or even before – if you are drunk. While a will is a written document providing for the disposition of your property after death – if you have any; a testament might explain why you are disposing of that property in the way your Will states or have already disposed of everything so there is nothing left. . A testament is also a covenant between humans and God or if you like a covenant between your heirs and you.

If you are a man you, upon your heart stopping become the ‘Testator’ and if you were a woman a ‘Testatrix’. (This may be a pun.)

Whichever you are, this is the last chance you will have to screw around with your kid’s minds, or anyone else you choose to leave something to, or not. In my will for instance, I have a special testamentary paragraph for my cousin who is the biggest crook on earth. In the will it says: “And to my cousin M artin, who I know hoped he would be mentioned in my will…..Hi M arty!” So it is things like that with which you can have fun. For instance, you might want to add something to your will that will totally freak out your heirs, because the mental and/or financial cost of following through with your bequest is so great.

Here are a few ideas: “S PECIAL BEQUES TS ”: 1. “I wish my body to be transported to Egypt by boat and buried in a 1966 Corvette convertible as close to a pyramid as is legally possible. This must be done within ten days or the totality of my estate reverts to the Bide-A-Wee home from lost dogs and cats in Syosset, Long Island, New York.” 2. “I would like the following items of my personalty to especially be dispensed as outlined below: a. To my manicurist Hazel Scruthers – my needlepoint ‘poodle sitting on the beach’ which is in the hall closet behind the vacuum cleaner. She always loved it. b. To my niece Flapjack M cCabe – my bathrobe, not the white one, but the quilted purple one with the cigarette burns – she always put her little head on it when she was a youngin’ before she became a crack whore. c. To my cousin M artin Whaleback – my flute from high school which is in a safety deposit box – Number 5671 at Bank of America in Podunk, Iowa on Sand Street. d. To my nephew Felix Delilah – my solid god and diamond Rolex watch which I am usually wearing. Why bury it with me when Felix can wear it at his gay bars and finally find someone to blow him. e. To my sister-in-law Rollene Robusta – my leather telephone book from Tiffany. She can use the blank pages for her numbers and impress her friends in Van Nuys with the label. I would leave her all my clothes, but she’s so fat she wouldn’t be able to wear them, f. To my daughter Sparkle Lykaturd – My rotting old mink coat with the ostrich feather collar and rhinestone buttons from Saks Fifth Avenue that I bought after a four martini lunch at The Plaza Oyster Bar in 1958 and wore to Liston fight in Vegas some years later. g. To my son Kirk Forestgone – my Chihuahua “Pepe” who I love more than anyone or anything. If Pepe is already dead – then whichever dog I own at the time. h. To my neighbor Vido Vitale – Five dollars which I owe him for the past 17 years. i. To the postman – a bag of poop from my cat Estelle’s cat box. j. And so on …… Of course, if you are not really mean, just at the end of your will and testament you can tell the world – and the probate court – that you were

“just kidding” about “A-J” above. To be an artist at this, you should make at least 175 “special bequests” – each more difficult to carry out than the other.

Chapter RETIREMENT HOMES

The way you f antasize about nursing and retirement home staff

Let’s get serious about considering nursing homes, staffed retirement homes, and “assisted living.” If you think that you’re going to be lying around in a heavenly atmosphere filled with love and caring – think again. Not only is love and caring almost non-existent in the business world – and these “homes” are a business a big one and getting bigger every day – just waiting for you to give up your house or apartment and trust them to help you through your last years. Yes, there are great nursing homes, but they cost about $12,000 a month – and even there you will find the occasional serial killer nurse’s aide.

Nursing Home staff – The Reality Frankly, you should understand this: There is nothing fun about caring for old people who don’t do much more than wet their beds and wheelchairs, complain about everything, or sit silent in the corner of their rooms staring at a wall. However, there is not a more hilarious chapter in life, for you, to understand that at some point, if you don’t die, it will be time for you to move to a retirement home. Don’t be glum about it. Even with the serial killer nurses, you can have a lot of fun during the run-up to DeathVille and pay your kids back for all the hell they’ve put you through for the past 40 or fifty years.

A nursing home is one of the rare places where you can find a toilet chair that supports people weighing more than 1,000 pounds !

The first thing you must do is to never, ever, say that you would be better off in a retirement home, or “assisted living” facility. Even if you shit yourself at Thanksgiving dinner while sitting next to a U.S. Senator who is the special guest of your son the lobbyist, don’t give in. However, way before the retirement home issue arises; make certain that your family thinks, at least, that you are running out of money. That will creep them out plenty. They will be frightened that they might have to shell out some of their own money for your keep until you keel over. Let them think that – even if you have a few million in the bank. As an aside – you must never let your family members know about or control your money – no matter how whacky they think you are. If you do, you won’t be able to mess with them later. Always cry poverty. It’s the best way to get great gifts you can sell later for your birthday and at Christmas or Hanukah - Stuff like a new refrigerator, a washer-dryer, or a 40 inch LCD television. Anyway, back to the rest home matter. At some point or other your kids are going to suggest that it’s time you ‘might consider’ going into “assisted living” – they will never use the term “home” or anything like that. Fight it – and fight it hard, even though you and I know that you most likely won’t give a horse’s ass where you sleep or with whom by this time. At the first serious discussion about moving out of your house or apartment say something like this: “Well sweethearts, I just didn’t want to be a burden on you and your family. You won’t want an old [man/lady/faggot/dyke] living in your house.”

This ought to make your kids itchy, and hopefully crazed with fear as they drool and stammer some reason you couldn’t possibly want to live with them. No matter what they say pretend you can’t hear them and ask them to repeat it. That’s funny right there.

Typical nursing home roommate.

Keep this up for several weeks or months – or even years. If you are not totally helpless, when you’re at their home, keep very obviously eyeing that extra bedroom, or make remarks about how difficult it would be if you were “forced” to live in the guest house because the bathroom door isn’t big enough for a wheelchair to get through it. In the end however, you will have to give in and move – unless of course your weeping request to your only son that round the clock nurses would allow you stay home works. If it does – be sure to fire them every two or three weeks so your family will have to hire more. This is very irritating.

Remember this - annoying your family is actually doing them a favor. They will be far less upset when you die. This is the truth not only for you as a parent, but also as a spouse. Just worry the crap out of them and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be happy to shovel that last clump of dirt on your coffin.

Remorse really is a rotten thing.

Chapter HOS PICES A nice way to say, “You’re dead – sooner than later”

View from your hospice “ window”

‘Hospice’ is just another word for ‘pre-crematorium.’ Don’t be fooled if you find your kids moving you from home, to a rest home, to an assisted living facility, and then into a Hospice. If you are rich, they will move you into the Peninsula Hotel in New York City, and hire a nurse. Don’t go. If you do, you will be giving up the ghost. In essence you will be admitting you are already dead – sooner than later. Instead, begin a conversation, even if you are just a few feet from the hospice door, about wanting to die at home – anyone’s home, but not a hospice of all things.

A Good Attitude: “This is my house – and I AM NOT LEAVING! ”

Your family will answer that a Hospice is not really a place to die – but to learn about the end of life and how best to cope with it, and that no one in the family would be as good at doing this as the professionals at the hospice. They will not pay attention to the fact that ‘death counselors’ usually get their training at a junior college in M exico and have no idea what La Traviata means, or how it feels to cruise on the Danube.

They will not think about the Jamaican orderly who finally loses it and beats the shit out of the ‘corpses’ because he or she just can’t take it anymore. So – No Hospice. Plain and simple. If the family insists, and you can’t get a cab to come pick you up then there is another way to get out. Simply destroy the place, or at least its reputation the first week you’re there. Start by standing or sitting if you can’t stand, in the middle of the cafeteria or ward or hallway and scream – “YOU ARE ALL AS GOOD AS DEAD. THESE PEOPLE WILL TORTURE YOU AND STEAL YOUR JEWELRY. THEY WILL RAPE YOU – M AN OR WOMAN. THEY WILL POSION YOU TO M AKE ROOM FOR THE NEXT SUCKER!

You can also set your alarm, awaken at 2:15 am and start screaming – I SHIT IN M Y BED!!!! And then do that again – every hour on the hour. This should work if you do it often enough, on he same night, and you will almost certainly be expelled from the hospice.

Geez, isn’t he dead yet!? If you are unlucky enough to be in a hospice where the staff are tree huggers and will not kick you out then something additional will be needed. It’s called a cigarette lighter and some alcohol. Believe me, if you openly set fire to the place, you won’t be welcome any longer and with luck they will take you, in the white van, to your daughter’s house in Brentwood or your son’s place in the Bronx and drop you on the front steps.

Chapter TRAVELING AND MAKING A PAIN OF YOURS ELF

“Hi Sweethearts!”

Let’s be honest, there is no one dumber than someone over sixty who loves to travel – or no one poorer. Only the very dumb or the working stiff st love to travel in the 21 century and they are always disappointed, but face it – people travel so they can brag about where they’ve been to their friends and neighbors – so this will never end. When you grow older however travel can be far more fun which helps to combat just how damn boring and annoying it is. I mean what could be better than driving up to the airport, having your trunk and entire car interior searched by idiots in combat fatigues – parking eight miles away in a parking lot that charges only $15 day, and paying $150 for that extra suitcase in which your wife stores her makeup – and her diapers. So who can blame you for wanting to have excitement? No one.

A minute af ter this photo was taken he croaked

The first thing I suggest is that you get a travel agent. They are more difficult to find these days because the airlines, hotels and others have figured out how to screw them by letting you make your own reservations on the Internet and saving the commission they might pay the agent if he or she did it for you. Of course, these same hotels and airline do not pass that same 10% on to you. No – they lie and tell you that not paying commissions to travel agents helps them ‘keep your room rates lower’ – yeah – only $600 a night for a decent room in M anhattan. Anyway, get a travel agent. Preferably a young fat one who you delight in bothering. First thing is to call her and tell her that you and your wife want to go for “the trip of lifetime.” This will get her drooling. Then tell her the trip will be from your home in Van Nuys to Cleveland, by bus! Ha-ha. Then tell her, after she is stunned silent, that you were only kidding, and that you really want to take your wife to M ilan for a wild shopping trip and to see the sights and the opera. This will get the obese travel agent salivating a bit more. Now add that you want to go by ship. Now the drool is running is down her chin. She’s already decided that this trip will cost you upwards of thirty thousand

dollars and that she might get a couple thousand in commissions to pay her diet doctor’s back bills. Any suggestion she makes – say ‘yes’. She’ll say ‘you ought to fly first class ‘(8,500 a ticket) to New York and then ‘go to England on the Queen M ary’ (6-12,000 per person) and ‘stay at the Ritz’ for two nights ($2000 with food) and then on to M ilan in a ‘rental car’ (3,000) where you can ‘stay near the Duomo’ for ten days (6,000 plus food) and then see “Fledermaus” at La Scala (‘sold out but we can get you tickets for only $1,200!’). Of course then you’ll fly back home, but you’ve already paid for that! So, she’s looking now at $40 grand. Tell her to send you an itinerary. Then decide not to go. A few weeks later, to make yourself feel less guilty, tell her you want to go on a real trip. These time just a nice inexpensive trip to Paris - and actually go. This shouldn’t cost you more than a couple thou for the airline tickets, and another few thousand for a week or more in a non-roachridden hotel on the right bank including all the steak and pommes frites you can eat at any local dive. But be sure to find a lower fare on the internet and a cheaper hotel and bug the travel agent about it – thus cutting her commission to shreds. When you arrive at the airport, make certain you are both in wheel chairs – but ones that do not fold so you will have to use the ones provided by the airline. This will solve two problems – first you won’t have to wait in line. Second, you will get to board the plane first. Third, some airline employee will push the chairs for you.

Cheap cruises are easy to find

Oops – I almost forgot. Be sure to order “special meals” from the airline before your trip – make sure they are “Islamic” meals – but bring your own kosher deli sandwiches in your carry-on for your real meal. You see, the fun here is to get yourself on a “watch list” – convincing the TSA that you might be a M uslim terrorist. To have the most fun, don’t tell your wife what you’re up to. Just suggest she wear a “scarf” to the airport because the air conditioning might be too chilly. Insist on it. M eantime put a pizza restaurant red and white checked tablecloth in your suit coat pocket. Put in on before you roll through security!

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m waiting five hour s to check in!

Be sure to let your wife go ahead of you in the security line. When she setâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of the alarm with her wheelchair they will search her for sure as they do all people in wheel chairs. When they find the razor cutter in her purse which you stashed in there just before you left the house, she is certainly going to be body searched. This will be amusing.

“Strip search? It’s a guitar you idiot!”

When you finally clear security after explaining you put the knife in her purse so you wouldn’t forget to take it out (alzheimer’s?) roll up to the departure gate and ask the clerk where the first class lounge is. When she tells you, pretend you don’t understand and then she’ll get someone to take you both up there – and no one will dare ask for your first class ticket or club card. While there, take a lot of snacks and other stuff and stuff them in your pockets and your wife’s purse. You will need them after your Islamic meal arrives on the plane. When it’s time to board – be sure to be at the gate early enough to be loaded on board first. As you roll down the Jetway, put the pizza-place table cloth on your head and start chanting in a low voice. This will upset the flight attendants, especially if you try to walk into the cockpit instead of to your left into the coach section of the airplane. After you are strip searched again by the sky marshal, demand to see the president of the airline. When that doesn’t happen, simply take your seat and begin to weep. In a while the flight attendant will bring you a free bottle of champagne and some expensive nuts from the first class cabin. Keep quiet until the place takes off. Now that you and your wife are drunk, and the plane has reached its cruising altitude, the flight attendant will approach you carefully and ask if

you are the couple that ordered the Islamic meal. Nod your head while keeping your hand over your wifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mouth. Once you do not finish the meal and instead eat your deli sandwiches, signal the flight attendant with your call bell and start screaming that the food she served you was inedible and that she is probably a racist. She is sure to bring you another bottle of champagne and more nuts. (NOTE: be careful about how loud and how long you scream about the food. If you overdo it, the captain will turn the plane around and take joy in throwing you off the plane)

Helen Hayes demon strates the power of the screaming passenger By this time you will be sleepy. Take a long rest, and get ready for your arrival in Paris.

Chapter PETS

If you’re af raid – G et a big dog!

As I closed on sixty I decided I required another dog. I had dogs almost all my life. Their was Jingo, and Holly, Carmen, Chaka, Hans, Cheri, Charm, Bonnie and Clyde, Edgrrr, DeNiro, BeLelah and a whole host of others whose names I cannot recall because I am having an Alzheimer’s moment. (And no mean letters from you Alzheimer’s survivors please!) Anyway, at home in America I have two little dogs that came with my girlfriend. Frankly I detest little dogs. But that’s another matter. In Europe however I did not have a dog, and finally I couldn’t stand it and went in search of a nice giant schnauzer which I found in Germany and is named DeNiro. DeNiro is now two and a half years old. He may live until he is fifteen at which time I will be dead. Well maybe. So what happens? I cry sometimes because I love this dog so much and I worry that I will die before him and he will be so depressed that he will die too.

You new huge dog saying goodbye to your “obvious choice”

Have you ever heard such rot!? Yet it’s true. When the normal melancholy of getting old sets in – things like this do make you weep. So be prepared. However, if you are not married, and you have enough money to feed a dog or cat – I recommend getting one. You won’t be sorry – even if your pet is. Pets also give you a new avenue via which to be annoying. For one thing – when you go on a trip you can leave your dog with your kids, your friends, your neighbors, anyone you can foist that responsibility on and laugh about it behind closed doors. There is nothing worse than having to take care of someone else’s dog – especially one like mine who weighs 125 pounds and insists on eating at the dinner table or humping you when you’re sleeping. Be sure not to tell anyone about your pet’s idiosyncrasies. Just let them find out for themselves. That alone is pretty funny.

Chapter Diapers or Dr. Kevorkian?

G randpa needs to be changed again!

Like me you probably have not as yet heard your pals and their wives talk much about diapers, but from what I’ve learned, many of us Boomers will have to become experts on buying and using them, Yccch! You’ll either have to off yourself, or get used to buying them - often. With our aging society – Boomers make up almost 30% of the American population, adult diapers are becoming more mainstream (pun intended) and seen in many stores these days. M any older people have ‘problems’ throughout the day and even in the evening controlling their bladders and so they wear ‘adult’ diapers to stop leakage which is sometimes far more than a leak – more like a torrent. The top adult diaper brands today are ‘Depends’ and ‘Serenity’ diapers. One would think the companies who own these brands are looking far into the future when you can depend on the fact that you die and that for the first time – God willing – you will have serenity.

These products are made for both men and women who suffer from “incontinence”. Incontinence is a nice term for pissing and shitting yourself.

The “Depends” pro-active model! What style!

You can get adult diapers that are sort of pads for men and women, liners, super-liners, belted undergarments, pull-on style adult diapers just like your grandson, fitted briefs and overnight fitted briefs which are hilarious to look at. The most popular pull on adult diapers so far are from Depend, Select, SureCare, Tena and Tranquility. However I have been thinking about going into the adult diaper business and calling mine – “PISS OFF” Although I think I might choose “SureCare” because the name sounds so promising. And don’t worry You can get Coach diaper bags, Kate Spade diaper bag (my wife has one), Fleurville diaper bags, Vera Bradley diaper bags, Tommy Hilfiger diaper bags, Gucci diaper bags, Eddie Bauer diaper bags, Burberry diaper bags, Kenneth Cole diaper bags, and Louis Vuitton diaper bags. Hah! There are other items you will need, especially if you are fat, or sleep lots.

The toilet paper extender f or people who cannot reach their butts to wipe them! Thank the Lord!

“Come dear – it’s time to change that nappy! ”

Hey Honey! Can you hand me a diaper?

The essential – “sop it up” pad for the floor and f urniture – you put in under your butt.

Here is a f ine invention – the “Extend the TP roller” for either f ront or rear use!

Women – you can carry this at all times – especially on long car trips!

And Men! We haven’t f orgotten you!

Stacked and ready!

I can just see you Wall Street types walking around with your matching Vuitton briefcase and diaper bag! Then there will probably be an Hermes diaper bag costing between four and sixty thousand dollars each. The one you buy will be dictated by just how much your want to anger your heirs! “See boy! I paid $60 grand for this diaper bag – I hope you’ll use it some day and generations after.” Whichever your choice, the adult diaper business is very “mature” and the companies pushing these products haven’t missed a trick. They even sell rubber gloves to protect your manicure from the stench. If you don’t believe me – check out the selection and the prices below -- And this list is only a small percentage of what’s out there– so diapers MUST be in our futures don’t ya think?

{ INCLUDEPICTURE Ca Vend "http://northshorecar e.c se or om/images/curvetop.gif"Ite \* m MERGEFORMATINET } # Item # Description Size Fitted Briefs (Adhesive Tabs) { { I HY N PE C RLI L NK U "ht D tp:/ E /no P rth I sh Tranquilit y ATN 18" - 26" C ore 2166 Y T car U e.c R om E /ov ern " ite h s1. t ht t ml p "} : { / HY / PE n RLI o NK r "ht t tp:/ h /no s rth h sh Tranquilit y ATN 24" - 32" o ore 2120 S r car e e.c c om a /ov r ern e ite . s1. c ht o ml m "} / { i HY m PE a RLI g NK e "ht s tp:/ / /no 2122 Tranquilit y ATN 32" - 44" c rth M u sh r ore v car e e.c om b /ov o ern t

Absorb ent Case

Unit

Capacit y Qty

Price Price Item # Qty

Case

Pack Pack Pack

Price

1 18.5 oz. Case/10 0 0.80 0 0

79.95 5121 Pack/ 8.79 10

1 22.2 oz. Case/10 0 0.80 0 0

79.95 5124 Pack/ 8.79 10

27.5 oz. Case/84 8 0.95 4

79.95 5112 Pack/ 12.59 12

t o m . g i f " \ * M E R G E F O R M A T I N E T }

{ H Y P E R L I N K " j a v a s c r i p t : g t _ _ s p ( ) "

ite s1. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2132 car e.c om /ov ern ite s1. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2134 car e.c om /ov ern ite s1. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2190 ore car e.c om /ba riat ric 1.h tml "} { PHT1 HY 69470

Tranquilit y ATN 45" - 58" L

33.0 oz. Case/72 7 1.11 2

79.95 5115 Pack/ 14.65 12

Tranquilit y ATN 56" - 64" XL

37.0 oz. Case/60 6 1.33 0

79.95 5118 Pack/ 17.59 12

Tranquilit y Briefs 64" - 84" XL+

37.0 oz. Case/32

Molicare Plus S

16 oz.

Super 20" - 31"

3 2.28 2

Case/56 5 1.05 6

73.00 5097A

Pack/ 19.99 8

59.00 5477 Pack/ 16.25 14

}

PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /m oli car esu per plu s.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car PHT1 e.c 69670 om /m oli car esu per plu s.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh PHT1 ore 69870 car e.c om /m oli car esu per -

Molicare Plus M

Super

27" - 47"

23 oz.

5 Case/56 6 1.41

Pack/ 79.00 5480 14 21.75

Molicare Plus L

Super 43" - 64"

26 oz.

Case/56 5 1.59 6

89.00 5483 Pack/ 24.50 14

plu s.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te nasu per bri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te nasu per bri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te nafle

Tena Briefs M

Super 34" - 47"

22.0 oz. Case/56 5 1.13 6

63.50 5283 Pack/ 34.99 28

Tena Briefs L

Super 48" - 59"

25.0 oz. Case/56 5 1.21 6

67.95 5286 Pack/ 37.40 28

Tena Flex Br iefs 24" - 34" (8) S

14.0 oz. Case/84

8 0.95 4

79.95 5334

Pack/ 29.50 28

xibri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te nafle xibri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te nafle xibri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te nafle

Tena Flex Br iefs 28" - 42" (12) M

6 20.0 oz. Case/66 6 1.06

Pack/ 69.75 5216 22 25.59

Tena Flex Br iefs 33" - 50" (16) Lg

6 20.0 oz. Case/66 6 1.13

Pack/ 74.95 5219 22 27.49

Tena Flex Br iefs 41" - 61" (20) XL

20.0 oz. Case/84

8 1.11 4

93.00 5277

Pack/ 33.95 28

xibri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2112 car e.c om /ju nio rbri ef. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2166 ore car e.c om /sli mli ne 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2120 ore car e.c om /sli mli ne 1.h tml "} { 2122

Tranquilit y SlimLine Jr

1 Case/12 2 28 - 42 lb s. 10.2 oz. 0 0.52 0

Pack/ 62.95 5210 12 6.95

Tranquilit y SlimLine Y

18" - 26"

1 Case/10 0 10.9 oz. 0 0.63 0

Pack/ 62.95 5048 10 6.95

Tranquilit y SlimLine S

24" - 32"

1 Case/10 0 12.7 oz. 0 0.63 0

Pack/ 62.95 5051 10 6.95

Tranquilit y

32" - 44"

20.4 oz. Case/84 8 0.75

62.95 5054 Pack/ 9.95

HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /sli mli ne 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2132 ore car e.c om /sli mli ne 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2134 ore car e.c om /sli mli ne 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK 6707 "ht tp:/ /no rth sh

SlimLine M

Tranquilit y SlimLine L

45" - 58"

7 21.4 oz. Case/72 2 0.87

Pack/ 62.95 5057 12 11.55

Tranquilit y SlimLine XL

56" - 64"

6 23.7 oz. Case/60 0 1.05

Pack/ 62.95 5060 12 13.85

Attends Brief M 32" - 44" w/ W aist.

8 18.0 oz. Case/88 8 0.70

Pack/ 62.00 5003 22 17.25

ore car e.c om /att en ds wai st1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 60107 car e.c om /att en ds wai st1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2120 car e.c om /att en dst en 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ 2122 /no rth sh ore car e.c om

Attends Brief L 45" - 58" w/ W aist.

19.0 oz. Case/72

7 0.86 2

Attends Briefs 10 20" - 31" EZ S

12.0 oz. Case/96 9 0.56 6

54.00 5159 Pack/ 14.85 24

Attends Briefs 10 32" - 44" EZ M

18.0 oz. Case/96 9 0.64 6

61.00 5162 Pack/ 16.85 24

62.00 5006

Pack/ 17.25 18

/att en dst en 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2132 car e.c om /att en dst en 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2134 car e.c om /att en dst en 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te na yo uth 1.h tml

Attends Briefs 10 45" - 58" EZ L

19.0 oz. Case/72 7 0.81 2

58.00 5165 Pack/ 16.00 18

Attends Briefs 10 58" - 63" EZ XL

22.0 oz. Case/72 7 0.96 2

69.00 5168 Pack/ 19.00 18

Tena Ultra Br iefs 22" - 36" S

9 11.0 oz. Case/96 6 0.56

Pack/ 53.95 5147 12 7.45

"} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te naultr abri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te naultr abri efs .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /te naultr abri efs .ht ml

Tena Ultra Br iefs 34" - 47" M

7 15.0 oz. Case/72 2 0.72

Pack/ 51.95 5352 12 9.60

Tena Ultra Br iefs 48" - 59" L

8 18.0 oz. Case/80 0 0.87

Pack/ 69.95 5153 10 9.65

Tena Ultra Br iefs 58" - 64" XL

20.0 oz. Case/72

7 0.92 2

66.50 5241

Pack/ 12.19 12

"} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2122 ore car e.c om /se lec t1. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2132 ore car e.c om /se lec t1. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2134 ore car e.c om /se lec t1. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no

Select Briefs M

32" - 44"

9 15.8 oz. Case/96 6 0.56

Pack/ 53.95 5021 12 7.50

Select Briefs L

45" - 58"

7 17.7 oz. Case/72 2 0.75

Pack/ 53.95 5024 12 9.95

Select Briefs XL 56" - 64"

6 23.0 oz. Case/64 4 0.84

Pack/ 53.95 5133 8 7.50

Protection Ultra Sm

9 11.0 oz. Case/96 6 0.56

Pack/ 54.00 5462 12 7.50

Plus

20" - 31"

rth sh ore car e.c om /pplu syo uth 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore Depend Fitted car 19740 Briefs M 26" - 41" e.c om /bri efs de pe nd. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore Depend Fitted 42" - 54" car 19317 Briefs L e.c om /bri efs de pe nd. ht ml "} Ca Vend se or Ite m # Item # Description Size Pull-On Disposable Underwear { 2113 Tranquilit y 17" - 28" HY OverNight XS

8 14.0 oz. Case/80 0 0.94

14.0 oz. Case/64

6 1.17 4

Pack/ 74.95 5703 20 20.75

74.95 5706

Pack/ 20.75 16

Absorb ent Case

Unit

Capacit y Qty

Price Price Item # Qty

20.3 oz. Case/88 8 0.90 8

Case

Pack Pack Pack

Price

78.95 5307 Pack/ 21.75 22

PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2114 e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2115 e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml

Tranquilit y OverNight S

22" - 36"

20.3 oz. Case/80 8 0.99 0

78.95 5310 Pack/ 21.75 20

Tranquilit y OverNight M

34" - 48"

7 34.0 oz. Case/72 2 1.10

Pack/ 78.95 5313 18 21.75

"} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2116 e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2117 e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh 2105 ore car e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili

Tranquilit y OverNight L

44" - 54"

34.0 oz. Case/64 6 1.23 4

78.95 5316 Pack/ 21.75 16

Tranquilit y OverNight XL

48" - 66"

34.0 oz. Case/56 5 1.41 6

78.95 5319 Pack/ 21.75 14

Tranquilit y DayTime M

34" - 48"

7 25.0 oz. Case/72 2 1.00

Pack/ 71.95 5298 18 19.95

ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2016 e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2107 e.c om /pu llo nstra nq uili ty. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns-

Tranquilit y DayTime L

44" - 54"

25.0 oz. Case/64 6 1.12 4

71.95 5301 Pack/ 19.95 16

Tranquilit y DayTime XL

48" - 66"

25.0 oz. Case/56 5 1.28 6

71.95 5304 Pack/ 19.95 14

SureCar e Super34" - 46" Plus S/M

23.0 oz. Case/72

7 0.97 2

69.95 5603

Pack/ 19.25 18

sur ec are .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nssur ec are .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nssur ec are .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns-

SureCar e Super44" - 54" Plus L

6 23.0 oz. Case/64 4 1.09

Pack/ 69.95 5606 16 19.25

SureCar e Abs. S/M

Extra

34" - 46"

8 14.0 oz. Case/80 0 0.79

Pack/ 62.95 5665 18 16.99

SureCar e Abs. Lg

Extra

44" - 54"

14.0 oz. Case/72

7 0.87 2

62.95 5668

Pack/ 16.99 18

sur ec are .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nssur ec are .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2603 car e.c om /pu llo ns sel ect 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth 2604 sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns sel

SureCar e Abs. XL

Extra

Select Y

Pull-Ons

Select S

Pull-Ons

48" - 66"

5 14.0 oz. Case/56 6 1.12

Pack/ 62.95 5671 14 16.99

17" - 26"

9 15.0 oz. Case/96 6 0.65

Pack/ 62.00 5100 24 16.99

22" - 34"

8 15.0 oz. Case/88 8 0.70

Pack/ 62.00 5018 22 16.99

ect 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2605 car e.c om /pu llo ns sel ect 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2606 car e.c om /pu llo ns sel ect 1.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore 2607 car e.c om /pu llo ns sel ect 1.h tml

Select M

Pull-Ons

34" - 45"

8 19.0 oz. Case/80 0 0.74

Pack/ 59.00 5009 20 16.25

Select Pull-On s L 44" - 51"

7 19.0 oz. Case/72 2 0.82

Pack/ 59.00 5012 18 16.25

Select XL

19.0 oz. Case/56 5 1.14 6

64.00 5106 Pack/ 17.60 14

Pull-Ons 48" - 66"

"} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY

Tena Extra 25" - 35" Absorbent S

6 21.0 oz. Case/64 4 0.94

Pack/ 59.95 5180 16 16.50

Tena Extra 34" - 44" Absorbent M

6 21.0 oz. Case/64 4 1.01

Pack/ 64.50 5183 16 17.75

Tena Extra 45" - 58" Absorbent L

6 21.0 oz. Case/64 4 1.12

Pack/ 71.50 5186 16 19.75

Tena Extra 55" - 66" Absorbent XL

21.0 oz. Case/48 4 1.35 8

64.95 5229 Pack/ 17.95 12

PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK

Tena Plus 34" - 44" Absorben cy M

7 19.0 oz. Case/72 2 0.88

Tena Plus 45" - 58" Absorben cy L

19.0 oz. Case/72

Tena Plus Absorben cy XL 55" - 66"

6 19.0 oz. Case/60 0 1.19

7 0.98 2

Pack/ 63.50 5322 18 17.50

70.75 5325

Pack/ 19.50 18

Pack/ 71.50 5328 15 19.75

"ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ob ext ra1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2635 e.c om /pu llo ns dis cre et1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car 2635 e.c om /pu llo ns dis cre et1 .ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK

Tena Discreet 32" - 42" Pull-Ons M

5 14.0 oz. Case/56 6 0.77

Pack/ 43.00 5141 14 11.85

Tena Discreet 42" - 56" Pull-Ons L

4 14.0 oz. Case/48 8 0.90

Pack/ 43.00 5144 12 11.85

Depend Super28" - 40" Plus Sm/Med

7 16.0 oz. Case/72 2 0.94

Pack/ 67.95 5715 18 18.75

"ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe ndun der we ar. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe ndun der we ar. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe nd-

Depend Super38" - 50" Plus Large

16.0 oz. Case/64

Depend Plus XL

5 16.0 oz. Case/56 6 1.21

Super-

48" - 64"

6 1.06 4

67.95 5718

Pack/ 18.75 16

Pack/ 67.95 5721 14 18.75

un der we ar. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe ndun der we ar. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe ndun der we ar. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no

Depend Extra 28" - 40" Absorb. S/M

12.0 oz. Case/80

Depend Extra 38" - 50" Absorb. Lg

7 12.0 oz. Case/72 2 0.92

Pack/ 65.95 5712 18 18.25

Depend Adjustable S/M

7 16.0 oz. Case/72 2 0.96

Pack/ 68.95 5724 18 18.95

28" - 45"

8 0.82 0

65.95 5709

Pack/ 18.25 20

rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe ndadj ust abl e.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo nsde pe ndadj ust abl e.h tml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ycur ity. ht ml "} { HY

Depend 44" - 64" Adjustable L/XL

16.0 oz. Case/64 6 1.08 4

68.95 5727 Pack/ 18.95 16

Curity Sleep Pants M

6 45 - 65 lb s. 15.0 oz. Case/68 8 0.90

Pack/ 61.49 5609 17 16.95

Curity Sleep Pants L

65 - 85 lb s. 15.0 oz. Case/56 5 1.10 6

61.49 5612 Pack/ 16.95 14

PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ycur ity. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /pu llo ns ycur ity. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /go od nit es. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI

Curity Sleep Pants XL

85 lbs.

125

5 15.0 oz. Case/52 2 1.18

Pack/ 61.49 5615 13 16.95

GoodNites, Boys, S/M

38 - 65 lb s. 13.0 oz. Case/68 6 1.01 8

68.99 5748 Pack/ 18.99 17

GoodNites, Boys, L/XL

60 lbs.

68.99 5751 Pack/ 18.99 13

125 13.0 oz. Case/52 5 1.33 2

NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh ore car e.c om /go od nit es. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh GoodNites, Girls, 38 - 65 lb s. ore S/M car e.c om /go od nit es. ht ml "} { HY PE RLI NK "ht tp:/ /no rth sh GoodNites, Girls, 60 - 125 ore L/XL lbs. car e.c om /go od nit es. ht ml "} Ca Vend se or Ite m # Item # Description Size Disposable Underpad s

13.0 oz. Case/68 6 1.01 8

68.99 5754 Pack/ 18.99 17

13.0 oz. Case/52 5 1.33 2

68.99 5757 Pack/ 18.99 13

Absorb ent Case

Unit

Case

Capacit y Qty

Price Price Item # Qty

Pack Pack Pack

Price

What is truly frightening about these diapers is just how much they absorb! Some of them hold more than a quart of liquid. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know that one could drink that much between trips to the bathroom.

I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bore you with the photos of these contraptions. (OR WILL I?)

{ EM BED AcroExch.Document.7 } Suffice it to say that wearing diapers is not only a real pain in the ass, but expensive as well. I wonder if they are covered by M edicare. I also marvel at the oversized toilet seat featured above with a 1,200 pound capacity. What for? Geez, am I missing something! And what if the toilet itself is not rated for more than half a ton? Then again, why would you need a toilet rated for this weight if you were always wearing your diapers? Questions, questions, questions.

Chapter FRIGHTEN ED TO DEATH

“Damn it – I really am mortal !”

I recently read a preposterous summary of a study done in London about what people feel when they are having a heart attack – or as the study describes one – an Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS).

These researchers assessed 184 patients having had prior heart attacks, and claim – get this - that only 40 patients or 22% reported that they had a fear of dying while doubling over and grabbing there chests in excruciating pain? Well, okay, how about moderate fear and distress? Only 95 patients (51.6%) reported that, and the researchers also claim that intense distress and fear was associated with female gender which seems to imply that only women are intensely afraid of dying while having heart attacks. The researchers also found that having a heart attack and fearing death likely would result in greater depression and anxiety one week after the heart attack. Wow –amazing! So, they conclude, distress and fear during the initial stages of a heart attack may trigger subsequent depression and anxiety, thereby promoting poorer prognosis and greater morbidity with time.** The M oral: ‘Stress causes you to die sooner.’

“Well, here we go again!”

This simply proves my point. Don’t be anxious about dying – even when you are having a heart attack – because if you are, you may die right then and save yourself a lot of worthless time! I am not certain I quite understood this study and its full impact, and I don’t really care. The summary itself was enough to make me laugh so I did not bother to read the raw data. My first thought was that if I was having a heat attack I would be 98% scared out of my friggin mind, and 2% happy that American Express would never collect that month’s bill from me.

What kind of nuts say they were not afraid of dying while having a heart attack? Only British ones I suppose. Stiff upper lip and all that Percival. However, this study is an excellent introduction to the fear of dying, and how best to cope with it. It is quite clear to me that one thing works best to cope with the fear of dying and that DENIAL. It seems obvious that the British study subjects above were almost completely in denial if they actually claimed they were not seriously afraid of dying as they had their heart attacks – unless of course the study was done in a mental ward specializing in untreatable suicidal patients. M ost people do not believe they will ever die.

Jeez, this rosary smells spooky.

This includes me. Every time the thought of dying enters my mind I simply push it to the far far back alongside my memory of M rs. Spronze, my anthropology professor who was a model for a leper M unchkin in the Wizard of Oz. I never think of her, and of course, I never think of dying…well until lately and perhaps only because I write modern history and naturally think “Hey, I won’t be alive when men walk on M ars”; “I won’t be alive to see Paris Hilton as a shrunken old shrew”; “I probably won’t be around to see my grandson William graduate from university.” I am not yet sixty and already these thoughts occur to me almost daily. I am not someone who is at all concerned about my health – so it isn’t fear of disease that pushes these thoughts to the fore. Perhaps I am just more

aware? I’m not sure, but I do know that my friends and family - the same age, and even older claim they never think about dying – unless they are stroking out, having a heart attack, or experiencing a blowout on the freeway while driving 130 miles per hour in a Karmen Ghia. This is why I so strongly recommend denial as your first line of defense against the fear of dying. Some of you may be able to live in denial until your heart finally stops, but most of you, when you find yourself nailed to a skate board after your legs have been removed because of rampaging diabetes might be less likely to remain in such a state of denial. So what do you do? Well, I have to tell you that a new and growing group of bullshit artists who allow you to pay them a great deal of money to help you cope with your fear of dying are now available in spades and multiplying every time I check. These are of course young people – who have no idea what it feels like to be old or to be getting old. Yet they will gleefully charge you $150 an hour to put your mind at ease – telling you that of course you will die pretty soon, but that isn’t the worst thing in the world. My favorite line from these internet psychologists is “Death is just a part of living.” Double, no, triple Hah! Death is not a part of living – it is the absence of life.

Example of “the absence of lif e”

I must tell you that my greatest fear – when it comes to dying – is that my dog, DeNiro won’t have me around any longer. He is only three years old, and could live until I am 75 – if I reach that age, which is doubtful. I admit to you, and to the world, that often I weep a little, for real, when he is lying on my bed at night and relishing our love for each other by rolling around on the mattress in absolute dog pleasure trying to bite off my arm. Who will take care of him if I die? My house man? My son? My estate? What estate!? But in the end, I know that no one will be able to take care of him like I do – and that’s the truth. And that’s where fear sets in. No shrink is going to convince me that worrying about my dog is not enough to make me rightfully fearful of dying. Not ever. Then comes the clergy.

I can’t wait to get his boy back to the rectory

If you really want to heave, read the crap the religiosos write about dying – or even better, go talk to your priest, rabbi, or imam about it. Whatever you do, don’t read the bible that will convince you that you’re going to Hell. You’ll never hear more bullshit in your life than that which will pours from holy usually scrupulous mouths. Not that they can be counted on to believe this pap themselves. Yes, a few do, but I am a Catholic because most priests – after a few drinks, will admit that it is fairly tough to have faith at all – especially in imaginings like going to heaven where you’ll eventually meet all your friends, relatives, and pets and the people you hated all throughout your life will all be in hell and that you will be forever young and thin, and desirable to everyone of the opposite sex.

The “Last Rites” – truth or dare?

Right. And cat food is a good source of nutrition for old people. The bottom line? It’s okay, and very healthy to be scared to the point of needing diapers about dying. It’s natural, and the only prescription I know to deal with it is the following: Begin to detest your Life! Yup. You know it’s true. Just think about your old Hilda, or your Uncle Zonk who “died peacefully in the end” after having cancer for several years. Well of course they died peacefully - and gladly after being in pain for months upon end you idiot! M ost likely they took 172 sleeping pills so they could die so “peacefully”. They hated life all right. Hated it with a passion, because every time they awoke – if they were lucky enough to be sleeping at all – they awoke to excruciating pain, embarrassment and worse – being bored to death by friends and relatives eager to collect their leavings. Now, we aren’t all lucky enough to die in excruciating pain – thus making our exit easier – even desirable. No. Some of us will just keel over in excruciating pain from a stroke or heart attack and never even have the time to get sick of living! That’s just not fair.

In order to combat this – your job is to make you own life a living hell, and there are many, many ways to do that. First, if you can have sex – stop. And stop by gaining 150 pounds so you are repulsive to women or men, and even to yourself. Second, move into a ghetto – into a shit hole one room apartment that looks over a Burger King parking lot – hopefully filled with smack dealers and drunken rapists. Third, give all your money away – to your kids, to charity, to your favorite Senate candidate. It makes no difference – Just give it away so you can’t look forward to much. Fourth, get arrested for a major felony. You choose which one – but I would recommend killing a nenazi in broad daylight – preferably on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Of course that might make whatever is left of your life more bearable. You might even become a hero in some liberal eyes, or a martyr. So scratch that idea. Fifth – call your sons and daughters and keep asking them for help, money for food, and anything else you can think of to annoy them to the point that they disown you. Then you can be almost absolutely alone and ready to die. That’s the ticket. What more can I say? Otherwise simply face it – you, my friend, are going to be scared out of your wits to die. With that in mind, do not be afraid to tell your friends and loved ones at every opportunity that you are frightened out of your mind. And don’t let them get away with any malarkey about heaven, reincarnation, or coming back as teacup monkey or a buffalo. M ake them know you are afraid and that you expect them to be afraid for you! Yeah! **Whitehead DL, Strike P, Perkins-Porras L, Steptoe A. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom .

Chapter CHOOS ING A GROOVY COFFIN OR CRYPT

Could this be Alan G reenspan’s coff in?

This chapter should really be named “Who cares what happens when you’re already dead?” but that seemed a bit harsh, so I thought I would start out my discussion of how to prepare yourself for the real end by talking about choosing a coffin or worse, choosing to have your burned up by a dwarf and stuck in a plastic bag or a cheap piece of shit vase that will end up in the hall closet or the dump once your relatives get tired of looking at it. I’ll begin by telling you that there is no business as rotten and full of scoundrels as the funeral business – and no, I don’t give a shit that HBO has that great series on a family who owned a funeral parlor. That was pure hogwash. People who choose, or even don’t choose to be in the death business are sick little fuckers and not to be trusted.

One gif t f rom Islam – The really cheap coff in!

That said, and my regrets to all of George W. Bush’s friends in that very business who’ve made mega corporations for his Texas "loyalty" eager to get hold of your body and convert it to cash. The first thing you must do is decide how you want your flesh disposed of. Eek! You scream. ‘What do you mean my flesh? This is me! This is my body, my temple, the organism that created my children.’ Well calm down – that may be true but after you die you simply become a mass of rotten stinking jelly crawling with maggots are worse – so drop the romance and get real. M ost of you – for Judeo-Christian reasons will choose to be buried in a box and in ground perhaps “sanctified” by your religion – thereby perpetuating the never ending barrier between religions. So let’s tackle YOU first.

The sexy double coffin for Angelina and Brad?

There are many type of boxes – cool ones, bitchin’ ones, cheap ones, vulgar ones, wood ones, metal ones, and cardboard ones that usually leak doing the funeral service. If you can – try to avoid the cardboard ones – even if they ARE recyclable. So is mahogany. Remember this – the funeral is NOT for you – it’s for your relatives, friends and enemies that will come to gloat at your demise. This does not mean however that you have to be nice about it. You can, as always, keep in curmudgeonly form and become a real pain in the ass – even in death. First thing – choose the most expensive coffin you can find. It’s your insurance – so why not spend a heap of it on yourself? The most expensive “off the rack” are the bronze caskets with special seals that won’t allow ground water to leak onto your body and make it rot faster. Of course, there is no guarantee this is true, but then what to you care unless you are the victim of murder and want your body exhumed so the cops can prove it was your wife.

Wall Street “Coff in Shoppe”

If you choose the bronze casket make sure to also choose the bullet proof and air tight Kevlar impregnated “vault” into which your $28 thousand bronze casket is lowered. That done, be sure to buy your own burial suit. Do not, under any circumstances, allow the funeral home to provide that. They just give you a half suit which might not even have a back and certainly won’t have any pants. No, go and buy yourself a Kiton suit – for about $8,000 with super 160 fabric, a nice custom made shirt from the finest cotton, and Hermes shoes. I must admit however that the clothes are much funnier if you are going to be cremated! Can you imagine your children learning that you have spent $20 grand on clothes only to have them burned up with your corpse! Haha. But back to the burial. Once the casket, vault, clothing and other niceties are checked off – move to the grave selection. If you don’t already have a

family plot – then you must buy a grave. To be extra nasty – don’t do the usual and buy two graves – one for you and one for your wife. Not unless you’re nuts.

Economical coffin store

Instead buy only one patch of land and watch her face when you come home and tell her that you paid thirty grand for a ten by eight piece of land in Beverly Hills “close to where Burl Ives is buried.” Okay. So you’ve got the box, the liner, the clothes, and the plot – now its time for the marker. Did I say “marker” – what I meant was M ONUM ENT. Of course, you want a huge monument – sort of like Cleopatra’s Needle as your headstone. These come in marble – but that’s the lowest possible choice you should make. I would go with something like Turquoise or M alachite. Something semi-precious that you can charge on your American Express card once the doctors tell you have less than one billing cycle to live.

It’s a wise move to be buried above ground –as long as you install a security system “f rom ADT”

So as not to wear yourself out – let your family decide on the religious services. That’s just a bunch of nonsense anyway. Let them have fun. Yet I must talk with you – the cremation types – or what I like to call the cheap sonovabitch assholes. You read in the paper or on the internet that you can be burned up for $128.00 plus tax and you think to yourself – ‘Wow – that’s cheap, I’ll do it.’ Of course, the ad doesn’t tell you that you also have to get your own body down to the crematorium to get this rate. If you can’t – then you have to pay for a body bag - $200, a hearse to pick you up, $600 – and some other hocus pocus – the wood used to burn you – fifty bucks. I suggest you witness you a cremation. To stop myself from going for this option I did.

An low-cost cremation

When I entered the room with the oven I saw about seventeen nude bodies stacked against a filthy brick wall and a muscular dwarf tossing them, one or two at a time, onto a steel slab which he then pushed into the flames – cackled – and then let burn for about five minutes. When the body was cooked – and not very well – he scraped a handful of ashes off the floor which was piled two deep with same – and put them in a baggie with someone’s name taped onto it. These were not the ashes of the body he had just toasted in the oven – they were a mixture of everyone’s ashes who had ever been burned up there for the past two hundred years. So you go ahead and get cremated. I have the best idea of all – Burial at Sea! For one thing – this is the most expensive and convoluted method of disposing of one’s flesh and bones. First you have to arrange permits from the Environmental Protection A gency, the coast Guard, The Navy, and maybe even the White House. You have to be sure that you and your coffin or body bag are thrown in VERY deep water so your corpse doesn’t go floating up to Barbara Streisand’s front porch in M alibu. You have to rent a ship big enough to carry your family and other mourners three or four hours out to sea.

And on and on and on. Burial at sea is by far the very best. Why? Because: 1. You will not be buried alive by mistake and wake up in a box so tight that you will die again in six minutes while screaming and trying to claw your way out. 2. You will not be burned alive. 3. You will not be slid into a drawer in a phony marble wall at Forest Lawn where you will still be in a box – but not underground – just surrounded by thousands of other bodies in that same wall who no one ever visits but that rats can find their way into. 4. You will be able to swim without oxygen if there is truly life after death and see all kinds of wonderful sea creatures like whales and dolphins. 5. Your body will provide a nice meal to a great white shark or killer whale – which you’ve always admired for their grace and tact,That’s if there is no life after death 6. Burial at sea is romantic Nothing can beat it for swoon value. 7. Burial at sea is dramatic and does not require dirt being thrown on you – and is relatively clean in all ways. 8. Burial at sea causes the most crying – There is just something about it that makes people weep as you poor old carcass is tossed with much pomp and circumstance – and maybe a 21 gun salute – into the briny. 9. Your relatives don’t have to visit you. M aybe they will throw a wreath of flowers in the ocean every now and then. 10. You will be cool. Imagine how hot those crypts get! Warning: In order to be buried at sea you must have a very good lawyer write an airtight Will and Testament to force your family to do it. Otherwise they’ll just have you cremated in disgust. It is also best that you talk about your “sailing days” with your wife and family during your final years – remembering fondly your love of the sea, your sailboats, your water sports, all the things that mean so much to you. If you do not own a boat now – buy one. This will be proof to the court that you loved the ocean – even if all you ever do it on it is have cocktails and try to shtup your receptionist on it.

How cool is this!

Chapter Attending Class Reunions – NOT!

College Swim Team Reunion

Unless you’ve been religiously attending your high school or college class reunions every year since they began – don’t start now.

The reason? You might have a heart attack right there and then when you see that boy or girl – now 60 to 80 years old – who looks more like your dead great Aunt Hilda then the head of the cheer-leading squad. If you have been attending your reunions regularly then the shock might not be so grave. (pun intended) This is because you’ve witnessed these fogies growing older over an extended period of time. Thus the trite line an octogenarian husband offers his doddering wife – “Honey you don’t look a day older than the day we met.” And he’s not lying (much) because the eye plays tricks on us and we see what we expect to see unless a lot of time has gone between that which we saw and that which we see now. I am serious. I for one have purposely never attended a class reunion despite the sick curiosity to do so now and then. One of my best friends from grade school urges me to come to my high school reunion in New York to see some of my buddies from first grade, but I cringe at the thought because I’ve had the experience of running into a few of them recently which took my breath away in a shudder. It’s not so much that they look awful, which they do – it’s the wake-up call that tells me – Geez, you probably look worse than he does! Sometimes there is a good surprise – I must admit. I know of one – My friend Lawrence Erkie – who was my long distance ocean swimming partner for awhile in Los Angeles, recently sent me a picture of him and his lovely wife. You know what – except for the gray hair – Lawrence looked the same as he did thirty years ago. Perhaps it’s because we met as young adults and not kids? The same is true for another friend of mine – Avak Keotahian – I guy I admire immensely as well. His only age giveaway is his gray hair too and his ever-nastier mouth.. I can’t say the same for the rest of my friends who I, of course won’t name. My friend “M ax” who I know from college is now a balding strike victim who pretends to be poor so I will pay him back a few dollars when he is worth only twenty million dollars. Then there’s my old girlfriend “Agnus” who has gone from a Jill St. John look-alike to a double of Dumbo the Elephant with red hair. Three out of four of my ex wives look either like giant beach balls or scare crows. Eight of ten of my exsignificant others look like something on a buffet table. So don’t say I didn’t warn you –don’t attend those reunions – they are only a basis for suicide.

THERE IS MORE!

Filename: DYING USE with cover pdf.doc Directory: C:\Documents and Settings\JEFFREY KOOPERSM ITH\Desktop Template: C:\Documents and Settings\JEFFREY KOOPERSM ITH\Application Data\M icrosoft\Templates\Normal.dot Title: Jeff Koopersmithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to Getting Old in America Subject: Author: JEFFREY KOOPERSM ITH Keywords: Comments: Creation Date: 11/26/2007 9:02 AM Change Number: 13 Last Saved On: 11/26/2007 9:39 AM Last Saved By: JEFFREY KOOPERSM ITH Total Editing Time: 40 M inutes Last Printed On: 11/26/2007 9:41 AM As of Last Complete Printing Number of Pages: 197 Number of Words: 25,865 (approx.) Number of Characters: 147,435 (approx.)