I don’t think I’m rich enough for the wife.

I can tell because of what time we eat dinner.

To be clear, she’s a good woman who tries hard to take care of me.

Sometimes it’s by nagging me about something until the Stockholm Syndrome takes over and I give in.

I do try to be an exceptional husband.

Sometimes she brings me home a present after she’s been out hitting Macy’s big time where she spent hours trying on ugly shoes.

Frequently dinner comes from some lunch plate counter, but that’s better than what I would make for myself.

This may be surprising but one can get tired of macaroni and cheese with chopped up hot dogs no matter how excellent that may sound.

She willingly makes the time to get dinner after a long day of working and shopping.

Seriously, the woman’s a saint.

The problem is what time we eat.

Dinner (in whatever form) usually happens between 7:30 and 8:30.

I’m sure if I didn’t go into my starvation routine it would be closer to 9 o’clock.

That’s the time zone the rich people eat and they make stuff like grilled beef heart with herbed vinaigrette and other things I don’t know about.

And they call it “supper” and it’s usually served with a glass of wine.

My mother always fed me at 6:00 and that’s when my stomach starts nagging me.

I try not to whine too much because it might interrupt her girlfriend’s phone calls or chatting with 5 of them at once on Facebook.

So I cruise the internet looking for food porn until whenever dinner time happens to be that night.

Food porn, for those who don’t know, is big juicy, warm, yummy, naked pictures of the stuff we’re told we can’t have on a regular basis because it’ll supposedly kill you.

Double cheeseburgers, McDonald’s fries, hot fudge sundaes, Dobash cake, baked potato…
…the list is endless.

If it’s good, it’s bad.

All the wonderful things in life that bring a look of horror and a scolding from my doctor.

I remind the her I spent the first half of my life eating junk food and maybe it’s the secret to longevity.

She responds, “Yes, and look at you now.”

I can’t win.

Everything changes when the kids and grandchildren come over Saturday night.

Then she goes all out and it’s like a restaurant with 3 or 4 choices – all cooked by her and served up at 6:30.

I die and go to heaven on the weekends – and then it’s back to normal.

Whatever happened to the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

At a reasonable hour.

I have discovered a lot of strange things happen when you get older.

Two of them are particularly distressing.

All the stuff hanging on your head get bigger and you have to shave your ears.

I bet most people under 50 never thought of that.

I certainly never did when I was younger except to gawk at some of the old guys that were beginning to look like Yoda.

Everything stops growing in your 30’s except for your nose and ears.

Add that to the other stuff on your face sagging and it’s a ridiculous sight.

That’s your future, such as it is.

In some Asian countries big ears denote wisdom.
For instance, most statues of Buddha have very large ears.

All this tells me is I’m living in the wrong place.

Most older guys don’t notice this until they’re shaving and the light catches everything just right.

Yeah, that’s peach fuzz growing all over your ears.
Mixed in with a few big, black hairs.

Really gross.

You think the wife would have said something.

She’s never been shy about telling me to wipe my mouth at a restaurant.

Other than checking my table manners in public I don’t think she looks at me much.

For example I once had a mustache for years.

One day I was trimming it with one of those electric mustache trimmers…at the wrong setting.

One swipe and about a third of it disappeared, so I just shaved everything off.

Here’s what I think: if my wife suddenly lost a good portion of her facial identity I would notice.

Not her.

Six months later she was with me as I told someone how I used to have a mustache but shaved it off and the light bulb went on over her head.

Back to ear hair –  I went to the repository of all knowledge, the Internet, to find out why this happens.

The scientific explanation is it’s a manifestation of the law of conservation of hair.

When I was young the manly fluid filled my whole being, but as I got older a lot of it boiled off.

So now it doesn’t even reach the bottom of my brainpan and the result is that hair grows in my nose and ears rather than on top of my head.

One problem with this theory is I have all my hair, but one can’t be picky with a scientific explanation.

Anyway, the day I discovered this hair I ran the razor blade over both of them and then had to put up with people at work asking me why my ears were bleeding.

Save this knowledge for when you get old – an electric razor works best.

Always glad to help.

I’m an old-fashioned guy.

That means I believe in some things that may be considered out-of-date.

Things such as traditions being important.

Family traditions are something that glues families together.

National traditions are something that give our nation its character and make us different from others.

If you’re over 50 then the chances are one of your Labor Day traditions was drop in occasionally and check out the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

Back in another life I hosted quite a few of those telethons.

Back when we were working 24 hours straight.

It’s sad to see what it has turned in to.

At close to 90 years of age, Lewis was overdue to retire and his participation over the past 10 years was cut back because of health problems and age.

But what seemed the sad but inevitable end of an era became a moral outrage and a public relations nightmare.

It’s impossible to understand how something so successful could be so mishandled.

What really happened still has not been told but a few things have become clear in the three years since the breakup.

Jerry Lewis was dumped by the MDA, the charity he had been identified with since the 1950s.

He’s still bitter about it, as I would be.

And the telethon is withering without him.

It is no longer called a telethon, but simply an “entertainment special,” and there was no tote board, no fun and nothing worth watching.

What once was a 21-hour live TV event that many people jumped in to check throughout the night turned into a 2-hour pre-recorded series of B-list acts and pitches for money.

The 260-plus strong “Love Network” of TV stations was dumped with only ABC carrying the event.

The reason given is  telethon is supposedly “old school” and no one wants to sit through them any more.
Social media is where it’s at.

The proof is in the money raised – and for the second year donations are down, a lot.

In fact they are down almost 11-percent since Lewis was forced out.

So much for that theory.

There’s a reason for traditions.
These are things we do together and they tie us as one.

Say what you want about Jerry Lewis, and he has his haters, he raised a lot of money for MDA.
And he started a tradition.

It exists no longer and we are poorer for it.
There’s nothing wrong in being old-fashioned about some things.