A friend of mine turned forty on Tuesday.  This is (I think) the first time this has happened, which is kinda weird.  I have friends who are forty or older, but this is the first example I can think of of a friend turning forty who was not yet forty when we started associating with each other.*

It makes me feel terribly old by proxy.  I’m not 40 yet, but I can sure as hell see it from here, and not in a Sarah-Palin-and-Russia sort of way, but an “across the goddamn street on a bright and sunny day” sort of way.

(Related, short anecdote: I got into an argument with my brother a couple of weeks about how old he was.  I was wrong– not because I didn’t remember how old he was, but because I didn’t remember how old I was and I therefore did the math to arrive at his age incorrectly.  This is a true fucking story, I swear to God.  I was off by a solid year, and I think I’d managed to spend a couple of months thinking I was 38 rather than it being a one-time brainfart.)

Anyway.  Speaking of me being ancient, let’s talk about my latest life decision.  I’m sitting in it right now.  There’s a picture of it right there.  I have decided that the best move to make with my current life is to become an Old Man with a Recliner.  It is not literally “my” chair in the sense that I lay sole claim to it, but I’m starting to believe that it’s mine anyway.  My wife called it “Daddy’s Chair” to my son almost the very second he noticed it.  I’ve never owned a recliner before, but our couch is developing issues and we needed at least one new place for people to sit in the living room anyway, so I figured I may as well go Full Lazy.  Very soon I will start demanding that dinner be on the table when I get home and possibly learning how to snore.  Because that is what Old Men with Recliners do, right?  Sure.

I turned my phone on during my prep period (I got a prep today!) to discover that there was a two minute old voicemail from the delivery guys that they were sitting in my driveway wondering where the hell I was.  “Where I was” was at work, since the damn chair was supposed to be delivered on Saturday.  How do I know this?  Because I have a full time damn job, and my wife has a full time job, and why the hell would I schedule a delivery on Thursday during ISTEP week when I know damn well neither of us are going to be home?  I didn’t, that’s how, and I didn’t get the phone call yesterday to tell me when the delivery was supposed to be like they said I would either, because if I had than I would have rescheduled with those people.

I called the guy right back and was in the early stages of “this is not what was supposed to happen and frankly I’m pretty pissed about it even though I know it’s not specifically your fault” when I realized that I was having the conversation in an empty classroom because I didn’t have any students.  At which point I abruptly reversed direction and asked the guys if they minded waiting ten more minutes and raced home.  I sat in my chair for about a minute and a half before heading back to work and nearly fell asleep during that minute and a half.  That comfortable.

Further updates on my inevitable transformation to Recliner Guy will surely be posted as they happen, unless becoming Recliner Guy makes me too lazy to write any more.

(*) I’ll give it ten minutes until someone pops up on Facebook to point out how terribly wrong I am.