Diogenes and I, Taking Turns Carrying the Lantern

Today I met an honest man.

I meet a lot of honest people, but honestly, I cannot alway tell.

"How are you?" the clerk at Home Depot said.

"Pooped," I replied. (Let us be honest, too: my language may have revealed my age.)

"So am I!", he replied. "We are about the same age, aren't we? Eighty?"

I rose up from my pooped position, looked him in the eye, and agreed: "Eighty!"

Some day I might cast stones or aspersions at the next person who calls me, "Young Fella". I might heap scorn on people who say that I do not look "a day over . . . Let's see . . . 57 (with a grin)?"

I am eighty. I look eighty. I feel eighty. I am pooped.

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