“Men have no aid to tell them that they’re getting older.
They just see their bodies decaying.
A young, fertile, fruitful woman can help you across that bridge.”
Actress Scarlett Johansson, age 19, in The New York Times
Dear Ms. Johansson
At my last birthday party, several office sycophants insisted that I wasn’t getting older, I was getting better, and though I have no reason to question the sincerity of these lickspittle toadies, still I cannot ignore the ineluctable reality of my body’s relentless decay. Sometimes – I’m thinking out loud here – I feel as if I’m at the threshold of a great bridge, like the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate, possibly the Throgs Neck or even the glorious Bridge to the 21st Century that President Clinton referred to with such misplaced hopefulness.
Conversely, I suppose it could just as easily be a big tunnel, like the Channel Chunnel to France, or the Daishimizu Tunnel through the Mikuni Mountain range of Japan.
But, anyway, as I pondered the decomposing carcass which encases my yet lusty and covetous spirit like a raddled pig intestine sheathing the rich, spicy scrap-meat of the sausage, and mulled over this business of bridges and tunnels, I happened to see “Lost in Translation.” Eureka! It was as if a radiant wood nymph had popped up inside the dark, dank root cellar of my innermost self, to shine brightly among the rank, moldering cheeses of my squandered ambitions and unseemly desires! Beholding your bonny and robust splendor – happily, your leg has grown back since “Horse Whisperer” – and how the salubrious heat of your blossoming youthfulness perked up even a drubbed and dolorous Bill Murray, made me consider the revelational possibility that whatever bridge (or tunnel) lay before me, what I might really require is only a young, fertile, fruitful woman to help me on my way. A dancing Salome to my flagging Herod, artless Ellie May to my undone Uncle Jed, buxom Britney before my wrinkled Hefner, zaftig Zeta-Jones to my crusty Douglas!
Or even, for a little playful gender swapping, blithe Harold to my goatish Maude.
These last decades of inescapable decline, dilapidation and decrepitude might well be bearable, even entertaining, if graced by an adventurous and full-lipped starlet, who can take the leap of faith older women – fed up, worn down and pissed off by my tired, self-serving shtick – no longer have the energy, interest or credulity to attempt.
Sure, the harsh, barren slopes of Mount Doom with its foul, boiling magma of extinction stand before me. But that weary, hopeless climb would be a heck of a lot more fun with a faithful Sam Gamgee beside me – albeit one as lithe and toothsome as any houri of paradise – to stiffen my pluck and mash my breakfast banana, to stew my prunes, share my Ovaltine and finally, at the dark, chill closing of my dwindling day, to cradle me in a friendly way against a warm, chaste and comforting bosom.
And in return, I shall proffer, without stint, everything I’ve learned from almost half a century of sterile, deluded and compromised poltroonery. That wisdom need no longer be lost in the necropolis.
Two fertile, young women, perhaps twins or, minimally, friends willing to wear the same outfits, might make even more sense because then, at least on the Golden Gate Bridge, we wouldn’t have to pay the toll. Whether the bridge, tunnel, mountain and magma are only abstractions or not is frankly beside the point, because I’m not one of those guys obsessed with similes and metaphors. But the argument for two or three, free-spirited, 18 or 19 year-old helpmeets – fruitful, fecund, fructiferous, ripe, nubile, however you want to say it – suddenly seems starkly irrefutable, and the more I weigh its pros and its cons, the more good common sense it makes.
You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Out of the mouths of babes.
I won’t give a damn how a sour grapes society will judge our monstrous love. I’ll shout “Pah!” at the gossipmongers and paparazzi! Indeed, I shall dance a slow, creaking, triumphant jig, fingers snapping above my glabrous skull, shaking my slack, crumpled bottom in smug jubilation for their nettlesome Nikons.
Yes, Ms. Johansson, I’d be honored to be your lion in winter.
Sincerely,
Henry E. Panky, Associate of Arts (candidate)
Humorist Without A Granfalloon
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