Call Me Slowsky Jr. but Don't Call Me Real Late for Dinner

Going fast is not for everyone. I totally relate to those turtles, the Slowskys, that you see in television commercials.

I’m slow and I’m okay with that. Now that I’m in my so-called Golden Years, I’m in no big hurry to reach the end of the road anyway. Lucky for me Sam seems to be content to go slow too. It takes the two of us forever to walk a mile around the park. Our pace usually drives Kathleen crazy, so she goes on ahead of us and laps us two or three times.

I don’t know if I was born slow so that it’s in my genes or what, but it’s definitely in my other jeans - if you get my drift. I’m tall enough, but my upper torso is longer than my legs. I always say if God had wanted me to go faster he wouldn’t have given me such a short crotch. About the only time I really like to go fast is when I’m driving a hot car, but I generally obey the speed limits so don’t get much chance to indulge my vehicular need for speed. I admit I used to enjoy driving a patrol car (Dodge 440) at 140 mph and I love flying across Montana in our Honda Accord at just under 100 mph, but other than that, I am not so speedy. My truck is not built for speed.

I have always resisted hurrying. My mother used to nag me all the time to hurry. She’d take me grocery shopping or something and constantly harp at me to catch up with her when I was quite content to just lollygag along checking things out, reading labels, squeezing the produce - that sort of thing.

It sometimes has felt to me like people tried to hurry me all my life. Teachers used to try to hurry me through classroom work. I know I spent too much time staring out the windows at school, but heck, the outdoors was so much more appealing than the indoors. Employers often considered me too slow. It never mattered that I was giving the task at hand my best effort, those people all wanted to hurry me up. Of course, the hurridier I went the worsier I performed. Then I’d get bawled out for making mistakes. As Rodney Dangerfield would say, I didn’t get no respect.

I don’t want to hurry. I still tend to try sometimes because of those nagging little voices left over in my head, but I’ve discovered that trying to go faster these days - like when I’m doing yard work or washing a car or doing housework - just results in me being totally worn out afterward and not worth a darn the rest of the day. Don’t ask me to go dancing or anything strenuous late in the evening.

I don’t have the strength or stamina to beat a Kentucky Derby tattoo on my butt and make it go any faster. Yesterday, it was 80 degrees outside and I wanted to edge the lawn quickly so I could sit on my patio and imbibe cool libations. But I paced myself, stopping every once in awhile to pet Sam, to wipe my brow, to rake grass clippings and so on.

I was probably a turtle in one of my other lives. Or maybe, if I do get reincarnated, I’ll come back as a turtle. Just call me Slowsky Jr. but don’t call me late for dinner ‘cause I’ll never get there.