1. At what age am I old?
After one day. As in, “She is one day old.” Then, at age fifty, you would be approximately 18,250 days old.
2. Why do you refer to days old instead of years old?
For the obvious reason that it appears we thereby have that much longer to live. On more dismal days we can revert to counting years, or even decades (of which we have approximately seven or eight, on the average), or if we’re feeling particularly disgruntled, half-centuries (of which we have, at best, two) as in, “Thank heavens I only have another half-century to go.”
3. How can you possibly find humor in deterioration and decrepitude, not to mention death and dying?
How can you survive it all unless you find the humor?
4. Wait a minute. That’s just the point. We don’t survive.
So you speak from experience?
5. Alright. So what happens when we die?
We go to the morgue.
6. I’m looking for more practically useful information, such as, at what age should I opt to collect Social Security – 62, 66, or 70?
First determine at what age you will shuffle off this mortal coil, and then do the math given the formulas provided by the Social Security Administration’s annual statement.
7. What is the origin of “shuffle off this mortal coil”?
It is from Shakespeare, as follows:
“What dreames may come, When we haue shufflel’d off this mortall coile, Must giue vs pawse.”
8. Must we exchange hands and feet for paws, then? And if so, why?
This is beneath us to answer.
9. Why do we live in such a youth-obsessed culture?
For the same reason the guy won’t find a psychiatrist to cure his brother who thinks he’s a chicken: he needs the eggs.
10. That’s not helpful.
That’s not a question.
11. I am searching for the Fountain of Youth. Can you tell me where to find it?
It is in Florida, as shown in the painting above by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1546.
12. I thought it was in Beverly Hills.
We stand corrected.