​​​​​​Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.

Milestones, hailstones, & gallstones

                                 (I am a destroyer of worlds. After my nap.)

Last week, I had two firsts. For a start, I had a weather event named after me. You would think the government would at least have the decency to ask me first. Not everybody likes being called an event.

Secondly, this ship that is my life has now officially docked at Port Old Guy. I dropped anchor, and a bag of groceries, and then had to go lie down.

Here’s what happened: at the grocers this past week, I bought some food. (I almost always do. Not much else to do at a grocery, unless you’re armed.) But I also received my first senior citizen discount.

The food part of that last paragraph, I was looking forward to.

As it turns out, every Wednesday at my preferred grocery (I won’t mention their name outright, but it rhymes with “Dublix”), a five percent discount is available to anyone who’s over 60 and fully clothed.

Personally, I already knew I was getting older; after all, I’ve been here watching the whole time. But somehow, I didn’t realize my slide into oldishness was that obvious to other people. While ringing up my perishables (yes, I still say “ringing up” – I’m old), the polite Dublix checkout lady (yes, I still say “lady”) asked me if I knew about their senior discount.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I politely barked.

I looked down and around, checking myself out, hunting for the clue that had tipped off Lady Dublix to my personal tally of decades.

• Standard pair of Levi’s, check
• Standard single-guy loose-fitting button-up shirt, check
  
• No jaunty, goofy golf cap
  
• No plaid pants pulled up to my armpits
  
• No shorts and sandals with black socks
  
• No t-shirt suggesting anyone “Ask Me About My Grandkids”
  
• No midriff bulge that made me look like I was trying to smuggle undocumented Democrats into Texas
  
• No visible colostomy bags, catheters, hair plugs, or World War II tattoos
  
• No faded, two-year-old “I VOTED” sticker
  
• Nothing in my purchases rolling down the conveyor belt that spoke to prostates, or butts, or liver spots, or an overwhelming urge to move to South Florida.
  

Maybe it’s the eyebrows. Although for decades I’ve had a standard head of brown hair, I lug around thick, jet-white eyebrows that spontaneously reproduce, like rabbits, or Bruce Jenner jokes. The shrubbery above my eyes looks like something director Peter Jackson, while scouting for Gandalf’s makeup, would’ve rejected as overly whimsical.

In a stiff breeze, my forehead looks like a party favor.

And speaking of wind…this past week, some desk drone deep inside one of our federal acronyms decided to name the next tropical weather system “Barry.” Right now, as we speak, Hurricane Barry is edging on-shore in several Southern States, threatening to water down millions of scotch-and-sodas, well before college football season officially kicks in.

In case you’ve never had a hurricane named after you (outside of divorce filings), it’s an odd feeling hearing your life analyzed and accused on the various TV channels:

• Stay tuned for the latest on Barry!
• Barry ruins summer weekend for millions
  
• More on the Federal response to Barry
  
• Barry: FEMA insists they’re ready
  
• Trump declares Federal emergency due to Barry
  
• Coming up: an analysis of Barry’s impact on fishing and tourism
  
• Casinos to take huge hit due to Barry
  
• Barry now a threat to low-lying parishes (oh, good – so now I’m careless and Catholic)
  
• Barry is gradually weakening. (don’t remind me)
  
• Louisiana local shop owner still concerned about Barry (Lighten up. It’s not like you own a Chinese lunch buffet.)
  
• This just in! Barry’s been downgraded. (What, am I dating again?)
  
• Barry weakens in Louisiana (I think it was the pralines)
  
• Barry nearly disqualifies three auditioning cheerleaders at Kappa Alpha kegger (this is not breaking news, but during one of my college years, it happened)
  
• There’s a slight chance that Barry will make it to Memphis (And do what? I can’t play the blues.)
  

By the way — if the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore shows up on my porch, somebody please notify my next of kin.

-Barry Parham

Barry Parham is a recovering software freelancer and a music fanatic.  He’s the award-winning author of humor columns, essays and short stories, whose work has been featured in four national humor anthologies.  He’s also the author of nine collections of award-winning stories whose most recent compilation is “Winding Down Civilization.”  You can follow Barry on his blog, The Diatribe, and on Facebook.  Barry can also be reached, at the most ridiculous hours, at barry@pmwebs.com.