(Welcome to the NRAAAARP!)
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For me, next week will be special, unless I die first. If I die, it will still be a special week, depending on who you ask, but probably not for that guy I still haven’t paid off from last year’s Super Bowl.

Next week, if I don’t run out of grace, luck, and medication, I’ll have another birthday. I will turn sixty-one. (And speaking of wagering, lots of us who grew up in the Sixties would’ve bet we’d never even see the other side of thirty.)

Sixty-one. I’m now older than most speed limits. I’m twice the size of Baskin-Robbins. I’m three score old. I didn’t just grow up in the Sixties — I am the Sixties.

Sixty-one. From now on, I won’t have senior moments — I’ll just have moments.

In some ways, turning sixty-one is a lot like turning twenty-one, but with less all-nighters, and more eyebrow dandruff. There’s that same heady rush that accompanies reaching one of life’s major milestones. Or maybe that rush was just me, standing up too fast.

One good thing about this stage of life: there are lots of available discounts out there for the fully growed-up guy; for example, movie theatre tickets. The only problem: these days, if I go into a dark room and sit down in a comfortable, cushioned rocker, I’ll be asleep in ten minutes and miss most of the story.

There are senior discounts available from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the American Automobile Association (AAA), so when you need to kill somebody and forgot where they live, you can find the best route (and the cheapest gas). McDonald’s will now give you free coffee which, unfortunately, your doctor will no longer allow you to drink. And, of course, there’s the AARP (Aggravating Ads that Relentlessly Pursue), the retired people’s lobby that’s been proactively mailing me personalized plastic membership cards ever since the day I graduated from puberty.

As you age, if you pay attention, you’ll discover there are some handy signals that’ll help clue you in to the fact that you’re approaching full-blown seniorosity. Let’s review a few: you may be old if…

• You own (and still actually use) a dictionary.
• You get unnaturally excited over riding lawnmowers. And sleep. And Little Debbie. (The food, not the girl.)
• The majority of your daily spam is a weird mix of offers for “final expenses,” managing occasional irregularity, sexual potency potions, and flying toy drones. Somebody’s customer targeting department is getting some seriously bad data.
• You remember when Cat Stevens was still a heathen.
• You’ve reached the age where not taking an afternoon nap is punishment.
• Eating pizza after 8pm can ruin you for about three days.
• You can remember the name of your rival junior high school’s football coach, but you can’t remember why you’re in The Home Depot.
• During your childhood, you didn’t have a facebook account; you had a passbook account.
• You remember when the only gay person on TV was Fred Flintstone.
• No television promo that begins with “Tonight! After an all-new ‘Dancing with the Network Stars’!” will ever excite you.
• You remember a time when it took ten years to watch all ten seasons of ‘Friends.’
• There’s this involuntary sound you make when you sit down or stand up. Kind of an announcement.
• You make a run to the grocery to get food, and to the pharmacy to get refills. You realize the pharmacy bag is bigger.
• You can remember when Bill Cosby’s biggest crime was calling Albert “Fat.”
• As you sidle into age 65, you finally get around to having a mid-life crisis (right — as though you were going to live to be 130). But instead of buying a car, or a boat, or a date, you want to buy another guitar.

So, time to face it, deal with it, figure it out, roll with it. It’s guaranteed to be full of surprises. After all, wanting another guitar is not just a signal you’re getting old — it’s also a signal that you’re way too immature to be this old.