The World According to JP

That's just the cold, hard truth. I still throw a few back, talk a little smack. When I'm feeling bulletproof.

Ok, thanks to Toby Keith to writing my new anthem. Yes, this suits me to a tee. I'm nowhere near what I was in my 20's physically, mentally or emotionally.

Case in point, I remember being 23 and playing in a softball tournament in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The tournament started on a Friday night. I believe our first game was at 9:00 p.m. and it was still 96° with 90% humidity out. We played that game, 4 on Saturday in 97° weather and 3 on Sunday in the same conditions. I don't remember being tired for the 12-hour drive home. As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember getting home around 2:00 a.m. Sunday night and getting up at 6:00 a.m. and going to work on Monday. Then I had a game Monday night. If I ever did that now, I'd need a minimum of a month to recover.

The thing that's frustrating to me is the fact that I can be as good as I ever was, but only for short periods of time. I wish I could put my finger on what happens to trigger these periods of short-lived youthfulness. I mean, in order for me to perform at my former youthful level, does the moon have to be held in Venus or some shit like that? Is it the exact combination of Advil, Neurontin and Vicodin? Maybe it's chasing quaaludes with beer. I'm not quite certain, but I'd be willing to sell one of my testicles to find out (hey, it's not like I use them anyhow).

Drinking like I did in my youth is a thing of the past too. I used to be able to drink enough alcohol to incapacitate an obese hippo and still go to work on 3 hours of sleep the next day. Now, if I drink enough to make a kitten slightly tipsy, I need a minimum of a day to recover. Note to you PETA freaks out there, I have never gotten either a hippo or a kitten drunk. Well, that's not entirely true. But the kitten thing was purely an accident. Let's just say I mixed up my "beer" hand with my "water" hand and leave it at that.

It's just not fair for life to throw this crap in your backseat. There should be some kind of warning for those of us that are getting older. Yes, I have gray hairs and no, I didn't consider that fair warning.

Personally, I'm waiting for the medical industry to come up with a pill to halt or even reverse the aging process. Hell, if they can invent a pill that gives a 95 year old man rock hard wood for 3 straight days, they should be able to invent something that enables me to run around like a teenager for 5 hours at a time, don't you think?
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