I'm Not Sure I Want to Watch my Salt Intake! I'm not sure I want to....

I’M NOT SURE!

I am not sure I want to watch my salt intake as I get older.

I don’t think I want to watch my calorie intake or make sure I am exercising at least three days a week.

I think I am fine where I am at.

When I was growing up….

When I was growing up, I played sports. Not like they do now—with water breaks and professional trainers. I grew up where you go to the practice field right after school, when most of the weather reporters are logging the hottest part of the day, you are in your practice uniforms doing stretching and calisthenics because the three-hour afternoon practice is going to be a bitch. So, we took salt tablets, because, well, we needed to-we were told. We had one drinking fountain and Coach Johnson, still recovering from the night before, would yell at us for lingering on our one water break.

They didn’t make ‘plastic water bottles’ back then. Growing up, there was a garden hose if you wanted water when you mowed your lawn.

I think if you get to a certain age, you should be able to coast. Like get off my back about cholesterol numbers, heart murmurs, hearing loss, sty’s in your eye. If your urine stream isn’t so ‘robust’ it’s okay. You won’t need it much longer anyway. And who wants a urine stream that involves a recoil?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think watching your weight and general health is a good thing. I want to be able to get up from the couch and not have to turn sideways to go down a hall, but after a while—after you reach a certain point, it’s like you crossed the finish line but are still required to do laps, at least according to the twenty-eight-year-old TV trainer named Crash.

I don’t want to do laps….

I don’t want to do laps. I don’t want to eat kale. Ever. I will never be one of those actors that pop up on my computer-‘click below to see so-n-so at ninety-four still schlepping it in their tank top and swimsuit!’ Do you know how many kale salads that person had to eat and sacrifice to do that? And frankly, no one wants to see you at ninety-four in a tank top and swimsuit. Sure, you might not look ninety-four, but you definitely look eighty-seven!

I want to be flexible. I want to be able and put shoes on AND see my feet. I want to walk with almost no end. My knees are done so I can’t run anymore but I can bike ride. As long as I don’t try to leap the canal-again. I can do that at this age because I ate the salt tablets and didn’t drink water on demand. Costco hotdogs are a main food source along with Costco food sample stations. I trained my body to go without.

Sure, I could have died….

Sure, I could have died in the early days. Some did. But Ponce De Leon lost some crew when he went exploring looking for brave new worlds, pushing the envelope. Who wants to live in a world where you can’t put a dollop of mayo on a slice of cheese and make two bites out of it? I certainly don’t. And that little tail of fat on your ribeye steak many kale eaters cut off and throw out, that is like the dessert portion of a steak dinner. I’m not talking every day. Just sometimes, like on ribeye steak day.

Look, do what you want. I’m just freebasing here in the early morning with real cream in my coffee and a sweetener which I am sure causes cancer in lab rats if they only eat it and it only for their entire lives. I don’t want to be a burden to my family when I get older. Don’t want anyone wiping my nose or my ass. I just want to get a nice pork roast and find a raft on the North Slope and cast off with the ice flow and the roast tied around my neck and a good bottle of scotch.

Circle of life.