How the hell did I get here?

How the hell did I get here?

I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint the day it was time to throw in the towel. I’d lived my adult life like a perpetual college student. I drank too much, ate too much, gambled too much, spent too much. I traveled the world on credit cards. I saw the Olympics in Barcelona in ’92 while I traveled through Europe. I spent a summer living on a beach near San Diego. I partied in Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New Orleans, San Francisco and all major cities in between. I lost my paycheck several times over on trips to Vegas and Monte Carlo. The pizza delivery boys knew me by name. Hell, they knew my dog’s name! I’d had a few long-term relationships, several short-term relationships and many one-night relationships. My only exercise was lifting the beer glass to my lips. In other words, life was good.

But that kind of living takes a toll. I certainly feel older than 45. I’m bald, but I shave my head, so you really don’t know how much. I’m fat, and believe me, there’s really no hiding that. I’d always lived my life with the belief I’d be dead by 40, and when that age came and passed, I suddenly found myself as confused as Sarah Palin on the SAT test.

Then one day, I am talking to my bank teller. She’s in her early 20s. Now, I have always had success with bank tellers. My first job out of college, I dated three tellers from the same bank. Not at the same time, but I am pretty sure #2 knew I had dated #1 and #3 knew I had dated #s 1 and 2. Yeah, I got it like that.

Or had it like that. I was not trying to date this new teller because I already had a girlfriend. But I felt our conversation was flirty. I felt strong because, even in my 40s, even though I looked a little like Shrek, this 22-year-old beauty was digging my game. I was charming her with my wit and self-confidence. I walked out of the bank with my head held high and my ego as inflated as today’s unemployment ratse. I hopped in my car, flipped the radio from the oldie’s station to a little “Apple-bottom jeans, boots with the fur…” and fired up the engine. I took a quick glance in the mirror to start backing up and stopped dead in instant horror. There, staring back at me from the mirror, was a booger hanging out of my left nostril! No small speck. A big booger.

Quickly, it flashed over me. This hadn’t just happened, blown down from deep within its cavern as I hopped in the Honda Pilot. This had been there awhile. I had just conducted a whole bank transaction with a visible booger. This girl wasn’t buying my game. She was trying to keep herself from either laughing or running away in grossed-out terror. I’d finally rolled craps with a bank teller.

I dwelled on it in horror for a few minutes. My ego deflated, I chose to move on with my day. I was on an important mission. Having recently learned the price of a good bra – seriously, how can they charge that much for something that isn’t even visible to most people?  --  I had decided my girlfriend deserved a few for her birthday. I was off to Victoria’s Secret to get a gift card. If she decided to use it on something sexy for me, all the better. I needed it after the booger incident.

So I zip into Victoria’s Secret humbled by my booger experience, but not defeated because I was about to visit the Land of Lingerie. Seconds inside the door, a lithe young lass who appears to be about 20 greets me with a smile and willing attitude. We exchange pleasantries and I explain what I am looking for – all the while my head swivels to catch all the sights. She tells me about store specials. I crack a few jokes. She laughs. I quickly glance in a mirror to ensure my nose is clean. Wheeew. I’m rocking a regular nose.

We talk more as she readies my gift card. My confidence has come back. I actually believe this young lady is enthralled by my charm and wit. I can’t wait to tell my buddies about this. Then, as she takes my money and hands me the gift card, she cheerily utters one of the most horrific sentences to ever hit my ears. “I wish MY dad would buy ME something like this.”

Yes, you read right. This woman thought I was buying this gift card for my daughter. I looked so old to her, there was no chance I was buying something sexy for my girlfriend. My manhood immediately shattered like Charlie Sheen’s mental health. I crawled out of the store a beaten man.

It was that day that I knew my frat boy life must end. Already in love with my girlfriend, proposing was easier now that I knew women were more concerned I’d have a heart attack than steal their heart. Quite honestly, we’d been together more than three years and were going that way anyway. I’m always amazed someone with such a good heart would put up with an idiot like me. I was determined not to let her go and now proposing would be that much easier. Within a few months we were living together and my pool table was replaced by a dining room table. Less than a year later, I took the gamble of my life and asked her to marry me. A wonderful wedding and European honeymoon later and we were staring at a plus sign on a home pregnancy test. At the age of 44, a guy whose whole adult life had been spent like a child was now about to have a child of his own.

How the hell did I get here? That’s how.