I will drag myself out of the grave...

...for this week's Limerick and Haiku prompt by Mad Kane, because I like the limerick and haiku thing. It's one of my favorite times of the week.

I've had the flu for the last couple of days; it took The Wife out for over a week. We're a wreck. At least The Youngster hasn't gotten it (yet). I'm just starting to feel better.

Anyway, the prompt this week is "age and/or life stages".

The first thing that popped into my mind when I thought about age was Jack Benny. I've been listening to a lot of old Benny radio broadcasts recently, and there are three running gags in the program. The most famous, of course, is that Jack is cheap. (That's the character "Jack Benny". The real Jack was, by all accounts, exactly the opposite.) The second most famous is that Jack can't play the violin. (Another reversal of reality.)

The third running gag in the Benny program had to do with Jack's unwillingness to admit his real age. I just listened to a show where Rochester had "a round table discussion" with someone on the question of Jack's age; "it's not the question that they had a problem with!"

"How old are you, Jack?"
Mr. Benny would respond,
"I am thirty-nine."

Unfortunately, that's a pretty lame haiku. I mean, it fits the syllable pattern and all, but that's about it. So I'll toss in another one, free of charge.

When you're a parent--or even when you're not--it seems that time goes by a lot more quickly than you think it has any right to. I was reminiscing to The Youngster just the other day that I used to be able to grab her and flip her over (safely!) with no problem. We would have a grand old time.

It was yesterday
That my little girl was born.
Tomorrow...she's ten.

(Not literally true, of course, but it will be true by the end of the year.)

By the way, the event that really made me focus on how much time has gone by was a job interview I conducted this week. It was with a young man who had almost exactly the same professional background as someone I used to work with at The Music Store. I asked the applicant if he knew the guy...and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it was a dumb question, because I stopped working at The Music Store almost fifteen years ago.

Tangentially related to age, here's a limerick about a birthday party. You could say that a birthday party represents passing through different stages of life.

Though it took us a couple of tries,
We rounded up all of the guys.
When he walked through the door,
Timmy's jaw hit the floor
As all of us shouted "SURPRISE!"