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By Jase Graves

I recently listened to actor Stanley Tucci being interviewed about getting older, and he shared some words of wisdom. (No, he didn’t suggest that older people should spend more time grooming their ear and nose hair—even though we should.) He said that we shouldn’t let aging consume us because there is so much for us to see and do. Or, in my case, there is so much more Tex-Mex to eat.

Now that I’m roughly the same age as the Hamburger Helper family of dried carbohydrate food products, I’m trying my best to follow Mr. Tucci’s advice, but my quickly crumbling carcass isn’t making it easy to remain philosophical.

I feel like one of those Halloween pumpkins someone left out on their porch until Valentine’s Day. It still generally looks like a pumpkin on the outside, but Heaven forbid that someone removes the lid to see what’s really going on in there.

Just the other day, I came in from mowing the yard (tragic, I know), and my wife exclaimed, “What happened to your arm?!”

As far as I knew, nothing happened to my arm, other than I was forced to use it in the unthinkable act of mowing my own yard. But when I glanced down, I noticed that my bleeding forearm looked like I had been hired to give each of our local feral cats a pill.

Apparently, I have developed what a slightly more elderly friend of mine calls “old man skin.” This is when your skin, especially on your forearms and shins, takes on the resilience of gift bag tissue—and not even the kind with sparkles. This means that if you go outside in a stiff breeze, you may wind up in a trauma center—or at least with some unearned sympathy and pampering from your wife, depending on your level of whining.

I also recently had a scare involving my prostate gland, which is a mysterious organ all men possess that is located somewhere between the belly button and the left kneecap. The prostate gland is usually unnoticeable until a man reaches the age when he looks even more ridiculous with a ball cap on backward and his fashion sense tells him that socks go perfectly well with sandals.

The purpose of the prostate gland, other than to have a funny-sounding name, is to teach men to navigate their way in the dark on the way to the bathroom at night without stepping on a pet or damaging their old man skin. Since I had been doing pretty well with this task, other than the stepping-on-a-pet part, I wasn’t worried.

Unfortunately, after my annual physical exam, my doctor informed me that, in addition to giving his staff a good laugh, my exam revealed that my prostate gland might be in trouble and that I needed more tests involving uncomfortable situations with strangers wearing scrubs.

Thankfully, the test results revealed that the only thing wrong with my prostate gland is that it is roughly the size of Saturn’s smallest moon, which, my doctor assured me, is relatively normal for men of my age and back-hair thickness. My doctor said we would monitor the prostate gland for now—I guess to ensure that it remains in its current orbit.

In the meantime, I’ll try to stay as healthy and fit as possible. I’m not ready for nature to take its obstacle course with my vintage anatomy just yet. There is too much yard-mowing to do, too many pets to step on in the dark, and too many good things to eat—and I don’t mean Hamburger Helper.

—Jase Graves

Jason (Jase) Graves is a national award-winning humor columnist, a married father of three daughters, a lifelong resident of Longview, Texas, and a Texas A&M Aggie. He writes about home and family issues from a humorous perspective for the Cagle Cartoons syndicate and his blog. Other than writing, his primary hobby is sleeping as late as possible. His winning Nickie’s Prize for Humor Writing essay, “The Sisterhood of the Giggling Rants,” is included in Sisters! Bonded by Love and Laughter, published by the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. His piece, “Victoria’s Worst-Kept Secret,” is included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Crazy Family.