Turning 41- Humor Column

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 Turning 41 is not a milestone. Turning 40 is a milestone. At 40, society throws you a party, people buy you black balloons, and everyone pretends that "life begins at 40," which is a blatant lie invented by the greeting card industry.

But 41? Forty-one is the morning after the warranty expires.

At 41, you finally realize that your body is no longer a high-performance machine. It is, in fact, a 2013 Dodge Dart. It still runs, mostly, but there is a suspicious, unidentifiable rattling noise every time you bend over to tie your shoes, and the Check Engine light of your lower back has permanently blinked on. You start making "Dad Noises." You know the ones. You sit down on the couch: “Oof.” You stand up from the couch: “Nrrgh.” You drop a pen on the floor, look at it, and seriously calculate whether you really need that pen anymore.

I am not making this up. MEDICAL SCIENCE has proven that at age 41, your metabolism officially packs its bags, leaves a note saying it’s going out for cigarettes, and never comes back.

In your twenties, you could eat a large pepperoni pizza at 3 a.m. and wake up looking like an Olympic athlete. At 41, if you even make prolonged eye contact with a dinner roll, your body immediately converts it into lower-back fat. This is the exact age you find yourself voluntarily researching the keto diet, staring at a plate of bacon and butter, and desperately trying to convince yourself that a mashed-up head of cauliflower is basically the same thing as a potato. It is not a potato. It is despair disguised as a vegetable.

Your brain also decides to start randomly deleting files to save space. You will walk into the kitchen with absolute, unwavering purpose, only to stop dead in the middle of the room, completely blank, wondering if you came in here to get a glass of water or to file your taxes.

And sleep? Sleep used to be a biological function. At 41, sleep is an extreme sport. If you sleep with your neck at a slightly incorrect 12-degree angle, you will wake up paralyzed and have to turn your entire torso to look at people for the next three business days.

But there is an upside to 41. The glorious, liberating upside is that you finally, truly, stop caring what Young People think. When you see a teenager wearing jeans that look like they were attacked by a weed whacker, you don't try to understand the trend. You just feel a deep, comforting urge to tell them to get off your lawn.

And that, frankly, is worth the rattling noises.

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