Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
Interpretation
Age brings unexpected benefits like better excuses for our shortcomings.
In this quote, Erma Bombeck humorously reflects on the advantages that come with aging, particularly in relation to self-perception and memory lapses. She suggests that as we age, our physical imperfections and memory issues offer us a chance to view ourselves more kindly and provide justifications for avoiding certain responsibilities.
In practice
In a speech about aging at a community center, to emphasize the lighthearted side of getting older.
We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.
Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
Not everyone is comfortable with the kissing ritual. My husband is one of them. Her refuses to press lips with anyone except his wife, mother, and dog. If someone wanted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he would refuse until he had been formally introduced.
There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
A grandparent will help you with your buttons, your zippers, and your shoelaces and not be in any hurry for you to grow up.
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
Toast was a pointless invention from the Dark Ages. Toast was an implement of torture that caused all those subjected to it to regurgitate in verbal form the sins and crimes of their past lives. Toast was a ritual item devoured by fetishists in the belief that it would enhance their kinetic and sexual powers. Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast.
Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.
When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don't respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.
I hate editors, for they make me abandon a lot of perfectly good English words.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
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