If I Knocked On Your Door

The twenty-somethings told me they could tell I was older than them because I talked about taping shows and said other things that aged me.

One of them said they thought it was cute that I had opened up Instagram and Snapchat accounts so that my daughter could have one too.

“You know she probably has a secret account that she hides from you.”

“You know I might have a secret account that I hide from her.”

The girl who said it giggles and spends an awful lot of time talking to me, enough that one of the guys asks me if I am going to ask her out.

Apparently the look on my face tells the story before the words can escape from between my lips. I almost call her a baby but I know it will offend the 25 year-olds who think they are ever so much older than the 22 year-old who I have no interest in.

****

I am only here because it is a work function and the beer in my hand is more of a prop than drink.  Standing in the bar I remember a different business function, also in Dallas but one held when I was only 24.

Back then I was careful not to drink too much because I knew better than to be the drunk guy at the work function.

The idea that it might make the next day hellish didn’t enter into my thought process because my body hadn’t yet decided it was time for a mutiny.

If I Knocked On Your Door

I have given up on using the beer in my hand as a prop and am standing near a wall drinking Scotch.

One of the twenty-somethings tells me I am lucky that I am old enough to drink it without looking like a kid trying to be a grownup.

“Yeah dude, you sort of look like my father.”

It is an observation and not an insult so I just smile and sip.

The guys are swapping stories about sports and girls and I have to laugh because some things never change.

I might be twice their age but the conversation is one I recognize, albeit some of my sports reference points are taken from before they were born or when they were are best toddlers.

“Dude, I knocked on her door and told her I wanted to get with her. She said yes.”

“No dude, I knocked on her door with a bag full of sex toys and she said yes.,

I am barely paying attention and to their prancing and wondering how much longer I am stuck when one of them asks me what I would do if a guy showed up at my door with some rope and a request to see my daughter.

“You might look kind of funny sitting in the back seat of your car hog tied and gagged.”

He laughs and asks me if I am serious.

“What if I knocked on your door and said I needed to see you because of your relationship with my daughter. Or what if I knocked on your door and said I needed to see you because of your relationship with my friends daughter.”

“Dude, relax. We live in the 21st century and sex is cool between people.”

I slide over and whisper in his ear, “I have been having sex since before you were born and have done some of the most outrageous things you can imagine as have billions of others. There is nothing special about your generation. You haven’t been doing it long enough to be good at it.”

Before they can respond I walk away, not turning around to try and determine if he said what I think he said because I am clearly morphing into the angry old man.

The best part of pushing 50 is knowing where the limits and lines are and recognizing which I want to cross.

Live Or Die

The video above the subhead made the rounds a year or two ago and if I wanted to make my daughter laugh all I had to do was try to dance along with it.

One time I told her that if any of the dancers from the clips were still alive they would probably still be smoother than I am.

She made a crack about my age and how they probably weren’t much older than I am and I said they were all older than her grandparents.

“Some of them are from your great-grandparent’s generation.”

I don’t know if that moved me or her more but I am guessing me because I am at that point in life where you take a hard look at where you are at and where you are going.

The one where you ask yourself is you are living or dying followed by ‘what are you going to do about it?”

The actors/actresses and dancers in the video had the same fundamental worries and concerns we do.

They had good/bad marriages, jobs they liked and jobs they hated.

I am sure some were good fathers, some were bad and some were so-so. No different from today.

Why mention it?

Partially as a reminder to myself that it doesn’t matter when you are born we are all going to share certain characteristics and dreams/fears in common.

We’re all people.

And sometimes all you really want or need is that Winne-The-Pooh moment where the person or people you care most for show you have your back too.