Michael's Corner

Daily writing prompt

Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.

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Dear Miserly Old Prick,

In the event that you’ve lost track of time (doubtless you have; it’s a symptom of living too long), it’s 2062, and you’re 100 years old. Congratulations.

But are congratulations in order? Should longevity count as an accomplishment? Let us examine the situation, shall we? Presently, you’re enjoying life with the sexy AI companion you were able to afford because you denied your wife the two-week train ride through Northwestern Canada she always dreamed of, and worked to convince her that she would be better off with a leftover Audi Q3 instead of a brand-new Q5 she had her heart set on. Nice work; you always were a persuasive prick. And so it serves you right that your AI companion has learned to do its own coding and routinely peppers you with limp-penis jokes of which there is a bottomless well. But what does it matter: you can’t appreciate any of her well-crafted humor because you’re too stubborn to wear the hearing aids your son finally convinced you to buy. What’s more, your companion can’t hear either because of all the racket made by your joints and other connective tissues clobbered by decrepitude—you’re like living with a rear-ended Galapagos Tortoise with a strangulation fetish… and that’s only when you reach for the remote control! And even if your sexy AI companion could hear beyond all the hydraulic wheezing noises produced by a century-old skeleton that’s arranged itself into something vaguely resembling a human, she would tune you out because you repeat yourself all damn day! Like everyone your age, you utter the same claptrap ad nauseam and with the same intonations, and yet you expect everyone to react as though they’re hearing it for the first time. It would be wise if the manager of the retirement home handed out leaflets informing your fellow residents, “The guy in 204 hates the Mets and won’t eat sauerkraut.” How pathetic! And yet there you sit, widowed and friendless, day after day, a lien on a long-exhausted healthcare system, bankrupting social security, while staring imbecilically at a machine wrapped in skin tighter than a bobbie-socked cheerleader and with no viable means to utilize her. Your earlobes have sagged to your shoulders, your head is where your neck used to sit, your neck has sunk into your rapidly vanishing torso, your ass is all bone, your knees repeatedly remind your scrotum that it’s lost all sense of spatial relationships, and your schmeckle looks like Abe Vigoda. (Tom, can you get me off the hook… for old-time’s sake?) So don’t bother with a Halloween costume; just tell everyone you’re a gargoyle destroyed by gravity or a shriveled old hobgoblin a fairy princess found too repulsive to kiss.

Place this letter next to the one you received from President Whovever-The-Hell, and refer to it whenever a situation calls for self-depricating humor, which is often.

Sincerely,

Yours truly, back when we could still think and hold a pen

PS: Be careful not to laugh too hard; you’re down to your last diaper.