By the way, those ever-clever boomers have also come up with a word to describe the jobs they feel are most suitable for retired people who wish to keep working. They call these jobs elder-friendly. Isn’t that sad? God, that’s just really, really sad.

And so, to sum up, we have these senior citizens. And, whether I like that phrase or not, unfortunately, I got used to it, and I no longer react too violently when I hear it. But there is still one description for old people that I will never accept. That’s when I hear someone describe an old guy as being, for instance, eighty years young. Even though I know it’s tongue-in-cheek, it makes my skin crawl. It’s overly cute and precious, and its an evasion. It’s junk language.

More: On CBS’s 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl, God help her, actually referred to some old man as being a ninety-something. Please. Leslie. I need a small, personal break here.

One last, pathetic example in this category: On the radio, I heard Matt Drudge actually refer to people of age. And he wasn’t being sarcastic. He said, “The West Nile virus is a particular threat to people of age.” Poor Matt. Apparently, he’s more fucked up than he seems.

Now, going to an adjacent subject: One unfortunate fact of life for many of these eighty-or ninety-somethings is that they’re forced to live in places where they’d rather not be. Old-people his homes. So what name should we use

for these places where we hide our old people? When I was a little boy, there was a building in my neighborhood called the home for the aged. It had a copper sign on the gate: HOME FOR THE AGED. It always looked deserted* I never saw anyone go in. Naturally, I never saw anyone come out, either.

Later, I noticed people started calling those places nursing homes and rest homes. Apparently, it was decided that some of these old people needed nurses, while others just needed a little rest. What you hear them called now is retirement homes or long-term-care facilities. There’s another one of those truly bloodless terms: long-term-care facility.

But actually, it makes sense to give it a name like that, because if you do, you make it a lot easier for the person you’re putting in there to acquiesce and cooperate with you. I remember old people used to tell their families, “Whatever you do, don’t put me in a home. Please don’t put me in a home.” But it’s hard to imagine one of them saying, “Whatever you do, don’t put me in a long-term-care facility.’ So calling it that is really a trick. “C’mon, Grandpa, it’s not a home. It’s long-term care!’

By the way, while we’re on the subject of the language of getting old, I want to tell you something that happened to me in New York on a recent evening. I was standing in line at the Carnegie Deli to pay my check, and there was a guy ahead of me who looked like he was in his sixties. He gave the cashier a ten-dollar bill, but apparently, it wasn’t enough. When the cashier mentioned it to him in a nice way, he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I had a senior moment.” And I thought how sad that was. To blame a simple mistake on the fact that you’re in your sixties, even if you’re just sort of joking. As if anyone would think a twenty-year-old couldn’t make the same mistake. I only mention this because it’s an example of how people can brainwash themselves by adopting popular language.

I wanted to pull him aside and say, “Listen, I just heard you refer to yourself

as a senior. And I wanted co ask, were you by any chance a junior last year? Because if you weren’t a junior last year, then you’re not a senior this year.” I wanted to say it, but I figured, why would he listen to me? After all, I’m only a freshman.

EYE SAFETY TIP

Here his a safety tip from the American Eye Association: Never jab a knitting needle directly into your eye and repeatedly thrust it in and out. You could be inviting vision problems. If you should suffer an eye injury, rinse the eye immediately with a caustic solution of Clorox and ammonia, and rub the surface of the eye vigorously for about ten minutes with #3 sandpaper. The American Eye Association reminds you: Don’t fuck around with your eyes. They’re the key to vision.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

BODY OF WORK: PART 1

(Not for the queasy.)

DON’T GIMME NO LIP

Do you ever get lip crud? That sticky film that sometimes forms on your lips? Especially the lower lip? It’s a kind of gooey crud that builds up, and when it dries it turns into a gummy, crusty coating? Thicker at the corners of the mouth, but thinning out as it works its way down toward the center of the lip?

And when it’s really bad, the corners of your mouth look like parentheses? Do you ever get that? Lip crud?

Well, here’s how you get rid of it. It’s a simple, low-tech operation, and it requires just a single tool: the thumbnail. That’s all you need. You scrape the crud off with your thumbnail. You just scrape, scrape, scrape it on down, scrape it on down, and you keep on scrapin’don’t worry about those people watchin’ from the bus stop; if they knew anything they wouldn’t be ridin’ the bus. You scrape it on down, you scrape it on down, and finally, when it’s all off, you take it and roll it up into a little ball, and then you save that son of a bitch! That his my practice, folks. I save it. Personally, I’m a lip-crud buff.

IT PAYS TO SAVE

In fact, I save everything I remove from my body. Don’t you? At least for a little while? Don’t you look at things when they first come off you? Study them? Aren’t you curious? Don’t you spend a few minutes lookin’ at somethhV, trying to figure out what it is and what it’s doin’ on you in the first place? Sure you do. You don’t just pull some growth off your neck and throw it in the trash. You study it. You wanna know what it is.

Besides, you never know when you re gonna need parts. Isn’t that true? Have you ever seen these guys on TV, they’re in the hospital? One guy’s waitin’ for a kidney, another guy’s waitin’ for a lung. I say, “Fuck that shit, I’ve got parts at home! I have a freezer full of viable organs. Two of everything, ready to go. Whaddya need? A spleen? An esophagus? How about a nice used ballbag? Hah? Come on. Caucasian ballbag, one owner, good condition. He only scratched it on Sundays. Come on, folks, take a chance. I’ve got everything you need.”

THE THRILL OF DISCOVERY

But regardless of your need for parts, the larger point is true: Most people study the things they pick off their bodies before they throw them away. Because you want to know what something’ is. You don’t want to spend fifteen minutes peeling a malignant tumor off your forehead, just to toss it out the window, sight unseen, into the neighbor’s swimming pool. No! You want to take a good, long look at it. You may even want to share the experience:

“Holy shit, Honey! Looka this thing! Ho-ly jump-in’ fuck-in’ Jesus! Looka this! Hey! Honey? Come in here, will ya, goddammit! Fuck the Rice-A-Roni! Get your ass in here! (Displaying item proudly) Look at this thing. Ain’t it something”? Guess where I got it? A minute or two ago it was a part of my head. Not anymore. I pried the bastard off with paint thinner and a Phillips-head screwdriver.

“But look at it, Honey! Look at the colors! It’s green, blue, yellow, orange, brown, tan, khaki, beige, bronze, olive, neutral, black, off-black, champagne gold, Navajo white, turquoise . . . and Band-Aid color! Plusget thisit’s exactly the same shape as Iraq. That is, if you leave out that northern section where the Kurds live. I’m not throwin’ this bastard away, it might become a collectible! Dial up those dickheads on eBay. We can make some fuckin’ money on this thing.”

STRAP IT ON AND PUMP ME UP

It annoys me when people complain about athletes taking steroids to improve athletic performance. It’s a phony argument, because over the years every single piece of sports equipment used by athletes has been improved many times over. Golf balls and clubs; tennis balls, racquets; baseball gloves and bats; foot