On things old

I found myself encountering old things today.  For those of us who grew up as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we attended Primary and one of the songs we learned was one about keeping the Sabbath Day holy.  It goes a little like this:

Saturday is a special day

It's the day we get ready for Sunday

All these years later, Saturday is still the day to get ready for Sunday.  One of those things I did today was to get my hair cut.  The place I stumbled into for today's cut offered old-school straight-razor shaves.  I hadn't shaved and thought, 'why not?'  So after my haircut, my face was covered is piping hot tools and then my beard got lathered up, and out came the old-school straight razor.  I've been shaving regularly for more than thirty years and I am not exaggerating when I say this was THE.BEST.SHAVE.OF.MY.LIFE.  I mean it.  As I sat there, completely relaxed, never once thinking about the fact that there was straight-edge razor dancing impressively close to my jugular vein, I kept thinking about the old school barbers you'd see in the old Western movies.  You know the ones...where they'd sharpen the razor on a leather strap and then shave away.  I was "Maverick" for a moment.  Once I came out of the reverie of the amazing shave, I realized I'm spoiled for any kind of shave again.  I have no idea how I'm going to go back to the razor I use now.  It's going to be rough tomorrow.

NOT the old man I ran into today

It was then time to check out a new grocery store.  Grocery stores, to me, tell a lot about a place.  I liked this one.  I picked up a couple of things and found myself at the front of the store, playing 'Gambling for Lanes.' You know the game - scope out the shoppers in front of you, assess how long it will take and if they are going to write a check, and then pick your poison.  As I went for a lane, an old man with a heavily-laden cart swung in front of me.  He took a look at the meager content of my cart and said, or growled, and I quote, 'Go ahead of me. I gotta wait for the damn wife.'  I chuckled and took him up on his offer.  He continued to harumph and complain to anyone who walked by about having to wait for his, and I'm just spit-balling here, beleagured wife.  I'm guessing life with Grumpy hasn't been a walk in the park for her either. 

While I couldn't help but chuckle over my encounter with this elderly version of Al Bundy, I made a promise to myself.  I am not going to be that guy.  I've been repeating it to myself all day.  I am not going to be that guy.  I'm not going to blaspheme the mighty fine and stunningly patient SML when I'm 82 and waiting for her at the grocery store.  I'll just be delighted if I make it to 82.