The Long Road Ahead

"I'm no fool, no siree, I'm gonna live to be 103, I play safe for you and me, cause I'm no fool"
Jiminy Cricket from "I'm No Fool"

The nurse looked like a truck stop waitress after a double shift, tired, beaten, exhausted. Suits her. Asking for anything special today would only lead to testicle clamps and placebos, neither of which were sounding especially comfortable today. I needed the sweet numbness of my meds, because something I saw on the television gave me the nits.

Can you live to one hundred and fifty? That was the grisly question that ABC examined last night. 150? The drugs and procedures that these life prolongers are working on seem just this shy of the Isle of Dr Moreau. They aren't thinking of transplanting baboon hearts in sickly children, leaving no excuse for the little poo tossers to act that way, no, they are growing human bladders and hearts in labs. They have, allegedly, isolated the gene that determines aging speed, and found a way to slow it down. When people say 40 is the new 30, they could be way off. 40 would be the new 20, which has a few pros and cons.

PRO: You can live to be 150 or old.
CON: Retiring at 65 would no longer be financially responsible, so tack on another 50 to 60 years of cubicle life. I shutter to think.

PRO: Sex til your 120.
CON: Sex with a 120 year old person.

PRO: Spending extra time with loved ones.
CON: Til death to us part has a longer sentence then Murder 1.

PRO: Think of all you could achieve!
CON: What if you are a procrastinator?

PRO: Imagine how the world would change.
CON: Six more generations of possible Bush family presidencies.

PRO: I might finally finish my novel
CON: But it could just mean 40150 more Asylum blogs and I don't have that much to say.

PRO: You could get a spot on Richard Branson's Mars Ark.
CON: 100 years stuck on a plane next to that chatty Jewish woman from the Bronx.

PRO: World Class Athletes could have longer careers.
CON: So could Ben Affleck (I kid, I love Ben).

PRO: You could see the world.
CON: Which would be completely devoid of natural resources.

PRO: You would never feel rushed.
CON: Traffic on the 405, miserable now, wait til there's 100,000,000,000 more people living on the planet.

PRO: We may move into a Jetson's like utopia.
CON: We may de-evolve into a Flintstone's like quagmire.

PRO: Everyone would have a chance to become whatever they wanted.
CON: Everyone would have there own reality show.

I don't know about this extra life. It seems too impossible, too irresponsible, and too insufferable. Would you want to live to be 150 years old? What would you do with the extra years? How does Barbra Walters still have a job?

Dixie Cup of Love: To the inventor of the pro and con list.

PS - The answers to Judi's questions are: 1. Feb 11th, a better quality of life. No. 2. Personal Choice 3. No where. 4. Having my dick squeezed by three girls at once. 5. Led Zeppelin, Oingo Boingo, and The Beatles.