FOR THE BIRDS

Undoubtedly, you have heard the phrase “for the birds.” Well, now that I have become an octogenarian, that phrase has become my personal favorite. My everyday motto. My guiding philosophy. My warning label. As in: old age is for the birds.

Now, my daughters love me dearly, but they cannot believe half the things I do. Which is understandable, because I only confess about one-third of my blunders. The other two-thirds are quietly buried in what little dignity I have left.

But you, dear reader, are special.

I will let you hear this one—though by the end of it, you may question whether I should be allowed near tools, machinery, or even scissors.

Last week, I locked my keys inside my tool shed.

Not the first time.

Not even the second time.

Yes… the third time.

And please spare me the old “third time’s the charm” nonsense. At my age, the third time is usually the ambulance.

Normally, this would not qualify as a full-blown crisis—unless your key ring contains:

1.    your car keys,

2.    your house keys,

3.    your shed keys,

Now, a reasonable man might say, “Ross, why not use bolt cutters?”

Excellent question.

Yet, I never saw the need for bolt cutters before. Besides, in my mind, only police officers and movie villains own those things. If you buy bolt cutters after age eighty, the FBI probably puts you on a watch list.

“Use a hacksaw,” you say?

Oh, I own a beauty. Chrome-plated. Heavy-duty. Brand-new blade. Practically sings when you touch it.

Unfortunately, it was locked inside the shed.

Mocking me.

I could almost hear it laughing:“Well, genius… here we are again.”

Eventually, I broke into the shed.

I am not revealing how, because I am not about to teach the entire county how to steal my hacksaw—remember, it’s my baby.

After this fiasco, I spent three straight days trying to figure out how to stop repeating this disaster over and over again.

At eighty years old, three days of deep thinking is dangerous business. Every remaining brain cell is precious. Mine are already traveling in a single file and wearing orthopedic shoes.

But finally—EUREKA!

A combination lock!

So off I went to the giant box store, shuffling through the aisles like the oldest of the Seven Dwarfs.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, a-shopping I will go…

Good grief, there were too many choices.

I wanted a simple lock.A basic lock.A “one-digit-and-call-it-a-day” lock.

Instead, I somehow ended up buying the Cadillac of combination locks.

This monster required a FIVE-digit combination.

FIVE.

That is not a lock. That is a math final.

At my age, remembering five numbers is like trying to recite The National Anthem backwards, while standing in line at the pharmacy.

Still, I bought it.

Naturally, it never occurred to me that I would actually have to remember the numbers.

Then brilliance struck.

At least I thought it was brilliance at the time.

Before I could reconsider, I grabbed a permanent marker and wrote the combination across my forehead.

Not easy, by the way.

Try writing backward on your own forehead while looking into a mirror at eighty years old. It is like performing brain surgery during an earthquake.

But my logic was flawless:

Nobody loses their forehead.

You carry it everywhere.

Unfortunately, I overlooked one tiny detail.

I cannot actually SEE my own forehead.

So, there I stood in the bathroom, squinting into the mirror, trying to decipher numbers that looked like they had been written by a raccoon riding a lawn mower.

The harder I squinted, the worse it got.

Finally, frustrated beyond all reasonable measure, I slammed my fist onto the bathroom counter—another “old-age-is-for-the-birds” moment.

Sadly, or maybe not, I forgot my phone was lying there.

SNAP!

The camera went off.

And just like that, I accidentally took the most perfectly framed, beautifully lit glamour shot of my forehead imaginable.

There they were—the numbers—in glorious high definition.

Why could I not have thought of THAT before tattooing myself like a bargain-bin outlaw?

So now I have a new problem.

Dear readers, does anyone know how to remove permanent marker from an eighty-year-old forehead before my daughters see it and try to have me legally supervised?

Because if they discover this story, the next combination lock I see may be on the outside of a nursing home.