Age against the machine

People have told me I shouldn’t complain about getting older. “You’re young!” they say. “Wait another 30 years and then start moaning.” I get what they’re saying, but I look at it this way: If I were playing football in the NFL, the analysts would be talking about how I’m slowing down, how my reflexes aren’t what they used to be, how I tend to break wind whenever I sit down. So I say griping about it is fair game.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I am not, in fact, an NFL player. The most athletic thing I’ve ever done is whacked my noggin on my elementary school’s jungle gym.

I do, however, lead a fairly active lifestyle, and it’s a good thing, because frankly if I didn’t get some regular cardio the stairs at my work would literally kill me. They’d find me curled up with my thumb in my mouth and my other hand clutching a half-eaten bag of bacon bits.

When you engage in regular exercise you’re constantly bumping against the upper limits of what you can achieve physically, and I’m pretty sure this makes you more aware of how age is affecting you. A dude my age whose fitness routine consists of sucking down frozen yogurt and unfiltered Winstons in front of “The Late Show” might not notice getting older, because his lifestyle generally doesn’t require him to lift anything heavier than his orange tabby cat. Apparently this fictional man has an orange tabby cat.

Folks who are somewhat active very quickly notice that certain tasks have become more difficult, seemingly overnight. Here’s an example to chew on.

Around 2005 I decided I was getting too tubby. When I lifted my hands above my head my shirt would lift up to reveal a protruding belly that looked like a giant gob of Silly Putty melting in the desert sun. Inspired to lose weight, I started walking. A lot. Every day, rain or shine, I’d chug up the steepest hills I could find, dash across intersections with puma-like urgency, and get my heart pumping so fast it could be used to power a small electric clock. The more weight I lost and the stronger my leg muscles got, the faster I could walk, and after years of doing this my gait looked like the double-time movements of those old baseball players in 1930s newsreels. It was pretty bananas.

This routine was probably at least half insane, but it came with some health benefits. My wind was incredible, and physically I felt like I could perform any task. Do a high-jump over a chain-link fence? No sweat. Perform a triple somersault over a pit teeming with flesh-eating crocodiles? Piece of cake.

Flash forward to the present day and these walks have started to change. Roughly halfway through my two-mile route I now find myself thinking, “Well, I could finish my walk, or I could call a cab and be home watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’ in about 15 minutes.” It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming. And when it does, the sportscasters in the booth will say, “Remember when Jeff wasn’t such a decrepit old fart? Boy, those were the days.”

Boy, they sure were.

Then there was the last blizzard of the season, mere weeks ago. For the past decade-plus I’ve used blizzards and snowstorms as opportunities to go on truncated walks, partly for the challenge and partly because I have a form of mental illness that should probably be treated with pitcher-sized cocktails of high-test pharmaceuticals. Trudging through streets buried under ankle-deep snow has always given me the illusion of visiting an alien planet -- an uninhabited world totally bereft of cars, people or those aggressive little dogs the size of Tonka trucks who pee on the sidewalk. You see your neighborhood very differently when you’re out in these conditions. Which is great, if you’re 25.

If you’re not, it’s probably time to donate your ski pants to Goodwill. I confidently ventured out into that churning tempest, and for the first 20 minutes or so, I was OK. The accumulating snow on my jacket made me look alarmingly like a giant marshmallow Peep, but I was holding out admirably -- until I saw the car.

At a T-intersection, this was. A peach-colored sedan had turned from a highly-traveled, freshly-paved road onto a residential street that was hidden under two tons of wet powder. Stuck in mid-turn, the sedan’s front wheels spun helplessly, and the driver’s head was cupped in the palms of her hands in frustration. Being the only person in sight in the middle of a late-winter rager -- and being the valiant hero-type -- I offered to give her a push. Someone want to give me a pat on the back? I can’t seem to reach.

Twenty minutes and several hard shoves later, and the car was finally unstuck and on its way. But my body paid the price. The muscles in my lower back were screaming so loudly I could practically hear them. “Dude!” they yelled. “Would you stop it, already? You can miss a walk once in awhile, you boneheaded blunderbuss! Next time there’s a hint of frost just heat up some cocoa, pull up Netflix and be done with it.” My back muscles are apparently quite loquacious.

Given these developments, no, I don’t think I’ll wait 30 years to start whining about age. Right about now feels right. Assuming this is a preview of things to come, I need to get a head start on my cantankerous griping. If I want to get really good at being an old crank, I’m going to need the practice.