Old Farts

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

You might remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that I had just turned 26 and I was kind of, er, troubled about the prospect of getting older. I was defiant that I was going to be the same young buck in my late twenties as I was before, despite slagging from friends that I was now 'middle-aged, free, single and gay'.

However, it pains me to report that age might very well be catching up with me. The night of my actual birthday, I found myself in a club in silent agony because of the pain coursing through my body (I might even have moaned about having to stand and the loud music).

You see, I was still a bit fragile from the festivities of the night before, plus I had a cold. None of which would have stopped me in the past, but this is what the advancing years do to a body I guess.

Thankfully, one of my best friends, who was staying with me that night and is of a similar vintage, was equally decrepit. One hangover and a few sniffles were enough to fell both of us. We carried our tired, creaky frames home at 2am.

When we got to my place, I made us wait up a few minutes while the electric blanket warmed the bed for us old fogies (I don't have a spare bed and he's too fussy for the couch). Slowly we began the painful process of getting into bed, all the while our old bodies creaking like the Tin Man before he found his oil can. Once we were settled in bed, I dispensed out our potentially dangerous cocktail of flu-fighting pills to take, nagging him to take his medicine now or he'll pay for it tomorrow.

We then lay there lamenting our aching carcasses, but more so our youth, which was clearly now far behind us. That was how I spent my first few hours as a 26-year-old. The signs for my planned late-twenties renaissance of youthful vigour are not good, are they?