I’m about to turn 50. Yeah, snicker if you want, but what choice do I have? I’m highly allergic to death, and I don’t own a decent time machine, so I’m stuck. Aging is bad enough, but the absolute worst thing about turning 50 is that people will expect me to finally act grown up. Well, I don’t want to be a grown up. I’ve spent my life surrounded by them, and I really dislike what I’ve seen. If that’s what turning 50 means, then just count me out.

Being a grown up means you spend too much time in cafeterias. Now, I love cafeterias, but you can overdo a good thing. I think having cafeteria food five or six times during the work week is perfectly reasonable, and weekends are OK too — especially Sunday lunch and dinner — but no one needs green beans and cabbage at every waking hour. Being a grown up also means you complain about the weather all the time. What a waste. By the way, I hope you all liked my column about the cold snap we’re having down here in Georgia. That freezing weather’s been murder on my sore shoulder… Now, there’s a coincidence. Grown ups constantly complain about their aches and pains too. And they’re always longing for the "good ole days." Sure, we had more cafeterias to choose from back then, and my shoulder didn’t hurt as much, but droning on and on about the old days just makes me mad. We never did that when I was growing up. Life was a lot simpler back then. And kids respected their parents, and a gallon of milk didn’t cost an arm and a leg. And it sure wasn’t this cold.

I’m just going to take it easy on this birthday — maybe have a private dinner with the people I really, really like. I guess I should invite my publisher too. There’s a cafeteria nearby that has a really good chopped-steak special. It’s a nice cafeteria, and they don’t mind running the heater full-blast to fight off this bone-chilling cold winter. Yeah, I’ll just go there, celebrate and forget about being a grown up. I might even get a few little gifts, if I’m lucky. That would be nice. I could use a new heating pad or maybe one of those rubber water bottles — anything to keep my shoulder warm until the weather finally warms up… around the end of June.