Longevity Brevity

One day at summer school, I approached a pretty girl who I only knew by name. I pressed my finger to her exposed midriff and said, "pudgy."



I survived, and she became my girlfriend. That was when I looked like this:



The other day I was talking to a pretty girl I know. I think I know her pretty well. I at least know her better than someone who only chats with her in cyberspace. (Teasing a friend here.) I told her, "you're getting fat," and also, "I noticed it in your ass."



It didn't go as well as the first time I tried that opening gambit. Not sure why. This time I look more like this:



I even wear funny hats too.

Thinking about it, I notice there are many things that change as you get older. One thing I learned is that modern girls don't know how to take a compliment. Also, as I get older, my balls shrink.

Not literally. I mean my risk tolerance has really gone down. Twelve years ago I was really into rollerblading. We used to skate through towns, schools, malls, wherever. We skated on benches, curbs, planters, walls, anything. We played roller hockey even though we didn't know how, and we used to slam each other good into the fence. We jumped down stairs and walls. We did 180s and 360s off of jumps. If it was 7 steps or lower, we did it without thinking. If it was higher, we did it with some thinking. I didn't mind getting road rash on my appendages.



Then the years went by. Now I seem to be like this major pussy. Little drops of about one to two feet scare me. The weird thing is that there should be no reason for my fear. I can handle the bike well enough that those little drops should pose no problem. Hell, I should be able to do drops like this one:



Instead, I get shaky doing little hucks like this fool here:



Perhaps it's a survival instinct. I know I don't heal as fast as a young, dumb, full of *bodily fluids* man anymore. Maybe it's my body's way of telling me that I really don't want to end up like this:



But it defies logic. I have crashed or injured myself almost every weekend we ride our bikes in the mountains. Fearing jumps and drops hasn't prevented me from getting hurt. It seems more like trying to chamois a car in the rain.

So what is it?

Probably the fact that I need to work on Mondays. When you're young and dumb, you never think about where you get your money from. When you have a career, you tend to think about keeping your job by not breaking your neck.



Actually, the most plausible explanation for the self-preservation would be to make sure I can live long enough to piss everyone off! HAHAHA!