What is something you hope to avoid as you age?

Answer 1

Real dementia....I plan to use my age as an excuse to do a few crazy things and people will just think I have dementia and excuse my behaviour. Of course I have to be careful not to overdo it or I might end up in a place I don't want to be.

Watch out for the aliens!!

Answer 2

The ineluctable urge to acquire a yappy little mop dog.

There appears to be some genetic predisposition to this in my family. When my paternal grandmother was in her fifties, she acquired "Coco," a maltese-poodle cross. Coco was an irritating, spoiled, untrained, ill-behaved wretch, a curly, hairy turd-colored excrescence, the size and shape of a rotten squash, on whom my grandmother would lavish no end of affection. Coco had a car seat because he liked to ride in the car and look out. Coco developed, er, undisclosed medical problems at one point and grandma had him circumcized. Coco would yap and growl and snarl and snap at anyone who came into the house. And my father hated Coco more, and more volubly, than anyone else.

When in the fulness of time my father was in HIS fifties, he acquired a cairn terrier named Rags. (Looked just like Toto from the Wizard of Oz.) My father became obsessed with this dog. A classic story: my younger sister (who was still living at home at the time) got up one weekend morning in her teens and came into the kitchen looking for breakfast. Our dad was rummaging around and mumbled something to the effect that she should fix herself a bowl of cereal. She did so... and as her eyes opened she saw that our dad was making French toast -- to serve to the dog.

Well, I'm in MY fifties now, and the cold hand of dread clutches my heart whenever I see a pug dog and am not immediately filled with loathing and an overwhelming desire to shout, "Get off of the bed!" at it. I fear that this absence of loathing is the sign of incipient canine senility, and that I too will suffer the genetic failings of my lineal forbears. God help me... and more to the point, God help my cats.

Though I suspect Mei, the inordinately large red tabby who loves me the way Annabel Lee loved her poet, would kill and eat a pug dog in the proverbial New York minute. Especially if she thought that it in any way was a rival for my attention, let alone affection.

So when I see a pug dog these days (and lately I've seen several of them and not been repulsed by them, but actually thought that they were charming little creatures with personality and verve), my blood runs cold at the thought that I too am but a bundle of chromosomes that do the mindless bidding of some ancient forebear and acquire a shuffling, drooling, yipping bit of canine effluvia as a sign that I have entered my dotage. Since this Saturday will the 51st candle on my cake, the fear is with me much of late, and I fear that I shall become unmanned.

Which would be just fine, as long as I remain undogged.

Answer 3

I hope I avoid memory loss and I hope to always keep my mind sharp and in focus.

Answer 4

i hope to avoid getting old as i age.
old as in a state of mind.

Answer 5

Being negative and constantly complaining about my regrets. If I try to achieve my dreams now I will not have spend my golden years regretting what might have been.

Answer 6

great question. i would like to avoid a bad marriage. if i get married i want it to be fun and exciting, not tragic, like a lot these days.

Answer 7

Making the same missteps that i made as a youth.

Answer 8

Old Men.

Answer 9

bad health and old age

Answer 10

Wrinkles and grey hair