There are certain things that happen in life that make you want to high-five every person within a 10-mile radius. Losing your virginity, for instance. Or the birth of your children. Or when your children (finally!!) leave home.

I have a personal choice to add to that list: the date in 2007 when Air New Zealand instituted direct flights between Auckland and Vancouver, thus eliminating the need to make a stopover in Los Angeles.

Someone once compared the ordeal of passing through LAX to the Seventh Ring of Hell. I disagree. Hell and all its rings is Disneyland compared to that American airport experience.

Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, Viking Woman and I flew into LAX from the South Pacific about seven weeks after 9-11. Now, I don’t like guns at the best of times. Big guns scare the ever-lovin’ crap out of me. When those big guns are pretty much waved under my nose, it’s a wonder every one of my sphincters didn’t simultaneously loosen.

I’ve never much cared for crossing intothe U.S. Growing up near the border of B.C. and Washington state, we often had cause to do so, however, be it a day trip to Mt. Baker or a cruise down the highway to Seattle. But even back then, when al-Qaida was still just a twinkle in some crazed Islamic wankjob’s eye, you were still treated like a potential smuggler-slash-drug dealer-slash-Canadian scum by the border guards.

What is it about giving a man a gun and a uniform that makes his dick so hard?

Travelling by air has become more and more of an endurance, and that’s even before you board the plane. Richard Reid hides “explosives” in his shoes? Now we have to shuffle through the lineup in our sock feet. UK police uncover a plot to launch a liquid Armageddon? You’ll be dumping that bottled water outside the terminal, young man.

And now some crazed mofo named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian no longer content to get his jollies by running Internet scams, hides “a device containing a high explosive” attached to his body inside his underwear.

His plan was to detonate the device as his flight from Amsterdam landed in Detroit. Which begs the question: if something exploded in the disaster zone that is now Motor City, could anybody tell the difference?

According to one story, this nutjob’s name was on a Don’t-Let-This-Asshole-Fly list but someone was obviously still tripping on L-tryptophan and so failed to properly focus on the passenger manifest.

To no one’s surprise, the reaction by American authorities was swift and merciless. According to a story on the MSN.nz website, passengers flying to the U.S. from Auckland will “face a rigorous second set of security checks,” including “rigorous luggage checks, the use of sniffer dogs and possibly body searches.”

There are already certain things you never say in airports or onboard, specifically anything that includes the words “hijack” or “bomb.” You can now add “there’s a party in my pants” to that list.

To my way of thinking, it didn’t matter that Reid or this latest fuckface failed — the terrorists still win.

We are now forced to shuffle through airport security shoeless, waterless and now pretty much clothesless, every single one of us having to prove our innocence by losing our dignity.

I can’t wait until the next douchebag boards a plane with a bomb rammed up his rectum. In fact, I’m going out right now to invest in shares of whatever company makes those latex gloves. I should make a fortune.

So, yeah, maybe there is a positive spin on this latest shitstorm after all.

Thanks, al-Qaida! Allah is indeed great.

I’d already left home to explore the great, wide world when cablevision finally made its way to my parents’ house, situated as it was a fair distance down a dead-end road. The arrival of that technology was just as significant to the household as the birth of the Internet would be some 20 years later.

Before cable, you could watch all of four channels on our cabinet TV, the reception provided by a set of rabbit ears. CBC, of course, because it served up Hockey Night in Canada, a Saturday night ritual as sacrosanct to our household as Sunday morning Mass. If memory serves, there were two other Canadian stations broadcasting from somewhere in British Columbia.

The other station, KVOS, originated from Bellingham, Wash. This signal was the weak sister of the bunch — to see anything other than a snowstorm of static, you had to hold the rabbit ears just so while standing over here, with your tongue protruding from one side of your mouth. Let’s just say it was a strain, both on your patience and your eyes.

But it was also the channel that, every December, broadcast my favourite Christmas movie, the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, starring Alastair Sim.

I watched that movie religiously each year, no matter how old I was, no matter that the rest of the family, complaining of crossed eyes, drifted away from the fuzzy images flickering sporadically across the screen. The picture quality was crap, the sound wasn’t much better, but it was my personal tradition and I sat there until the very last “God bless us, everyone.”

Cue the passing of several decades, to the point where I’m now living in New Zealand and, even though our TV only receives four channels (hello, deja vu), they are delivered through the satellite perched like a spherical gargoyle on our roof and so the reception is crystal-clear.

In other words, I am now in the perfect position to see every twitch of Ebenezer Scrooge’s greedy eyebrows, hear every word uttered in Jacob Marley’s dying breath.

Except . . .  well, those rocket scientists who program the free-to-air channels in this country have decided not to serve up one of the great Noel delights.

I have no idea why Scrooge is nowhere to be found on my dial. Nor, for that matter, is Ralphie Parker and his Red Ryder BB gun and all the other delicious fun of A Christmas Story (1983), which sits at No. 2 on my Christmas movie list.

Maybe it’s the weather — it is, after all, summer in the Southern Hemisphere — or maybe those people in charge of the signal really do think Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause is cinema of the highest degree, but the movies slotted in to replace the usual sitcoms and dramas during the holiday season are not exactly inspiring me to roast my chestnuts. Even on the barbie.

The Shawshank Redemption? Because nothing heralds the birth of Baby Jesus or announces the imminent arrival of Santa Claus more than watching men gang-rape each other in dank prison cells.

A Knight’s Tale? Well, I suppose ramming your lance down an opponent’s throat does bear a slight resemblance to ramming bread crumbs up a turkey’s arse.

Mrs. Doubtfire? Man loses children in nasty divorce. Man dresses up as woman to spend time with children. Man sets himself on fire. Pass the gay apparel.

Bridget Jones’s Diary? “Dear self. Just drank 30 glasses of eggnog and ate an entire plate of pickled herring. Why can’t I find a man?”

Phantom of the Opera? “A disfigured genius terrorises the Paris Opera House.” Hope this doesn’t make me spew the shortbread cookies.

The Nativity Story would seem to fit the season perfectly. Except for that one small hiccup where, while doing press for a movie about the virgin birth, its teenage star, NZ-born Keisha Castle-Hughes, announced she was pregnant. “An angel did it,” only works once, sweetheart.

So you can see why I’m not exactly in a Christmasy mood today. I’ve never really adjusted to wearing sunscreen and sunglasses on Dec. 25, but I’d feel better about it if I could watch Scrooge stumble back to his abode while being buffeted by a wind as frigid as his heart.

The bad news is New Year’s Eve isn’t shaping up to be any better of a TV night. Gladiator? So our final memory of 2009 can be of men in leather skirts being dismembered by giant cats?

But, actually, when you consider that 2010 is the Year of the Tiger, maybe that was a wise programming choice after all. Just try not to splatter any blood in my popcorn.

NOTE: Viking Woman’s children have since contacted me to relate how, when they were little, after the presents were open and the eggnog served, she would gather them in front of the TV and the VCR for a little family-film time. The title she chose each year? Better Off Dead, the 1985 John Cusack movie about teen suicide.

Because sometimes even sugarplum fairies have dark thoughts.

One night when I was in Grade 8, my parents returned from an outing to find me sitting at the kitchen table, clad in my pajamas and poring over the first volume of our encyclopedia set.

I was studying the entry under Appendix and seeing if anything there applied to the searing pain in my abdomen. For some reason, my 13-year-old self had a profound fear of said organ rupturing one day and consequently sending me to my grave before I’d had the opportunity to fully appreciate the onslaught of puberty.

Turns out the pain in my side that had roused me from sleep and sent me downstairs to the bookshelf was not my appendix come calling with the ace of spades in hand but, rather, my spleen, having been bruised by a particularly robust tackle during a community football game I played that weekend.

A visit to the local hospital, a caution to stay off the cleats for a few days, and I was good as gold.

They say you can’t buy your health, which is a good thing considering my lack of fundage. Working in a seniors’ residence only reinforces that notion. Once Nature decides we are no longer of any use as far as perpetuating the species, our bodies quickly begin to deteriorate.

I’m touching wood as I write this, but I count myself lucky as far as health problems go. Oh sure, there was that stay in a hospital necessitated by a peptic ulcer, the result of taking full advantage of the employees-eat-for-free policy at the fried chicken joint where I was working.

I sprained both knees playing hockey and now no longer entertain any thoughts of running marathons. And an errant kidney stone once nearly brought me to my knees and resulted in yet another hospital stay. Only this one saw me being paid in full as part of my benefits package, so I read in bed for a week while women attended to my every need. So, yeah, totally worth the excruciating pain.

What’s now keeping me awake at night, literally, is my gall bladder. Or, rather, the gall stones that rattle around in said bladder, becoming more and more agitated as I shovel fatty substances into my pie hole, until one of the little bastards becomes jammed in the entrance.

This invariably happens at 1 a.m. and results in me on the bathroom floor, blinded by the light, fumbling under the sink for anything that will ease the pain.

A number of my relatives have had their gall bladders removed and report no adverse effects. But, unlike the abovementioned useless appendix, I’m pretty sure, when it’s not playing silly buggers, your gall bladder has a purpose.

Mine, for instance, is designed to remind me that eating Christmas cake is fine. Eating Christmas cake smothered in dollops of whipped cream? Not so much.

So, yeah, it’s been a rough start to my workday. I’m tired from a restless night and, unlike other attacks, this time my gall bladder is still throbbing well into the morning. In fact, I’ve just now returned from the toilet, where I recycled a bowl of cereal and fruit, along with several cups of perfectly decent coffee.

In my body’s haste to rid itself of anything that might be annoying my gall bladder, I managed to spew all over the floor, the door and my pant legs. It’s going to be a long, hot day here in the laundry room and I can only imagine the stench that will soon envelop me.

On second thought, maybe I will have the offending organ removed. In fact, if it gives me any more trouble today, I’m going to march straight down to the facility’s kitchen, borrow a steak knife and cut out the bastard myself.

And while I’m schlurping around in the old body cavity, I may even pay a visit to Mr. Appendix. A bit of payback, as it were, for scaring 13-year-old boys half to death.

There is a one-sheet for Battle in Seattle displayed in the window of Napier’s United Video store. It is a fictional account of the 1999 rallying of so-called “activists” against a meeting of the World Trade Organization in that Washington state city. Because it opened commercially in Vancouver, I will need to view the movie. Some day.

The six o’clock news shows protesters clashing with Danish police during the Copenhagen climate summit. I watch with glazed eyes and dulled senses until the microwave oven beeps to tell me dinner’s ready.

My one thought? All those long-haired, freaky protesters look alike to me. I wish I had their money so I could afford to fly around the world hurling rubbish bins through plate-glass windows. That’s my kind of job. Plus you don’t have to worry about little time-consuming chores interfering with your protest march. Things like, oh, showering, for instance. Or washing your clothes.

Kiwis of a certain age wear the 1981 Springbok Tour protest like a badge of honour, as if they personally brought apartheid to its knees. Or maybe they were just thrilled to see themselves on TV. Either or.

I’ve never been much for protesting. Oh, sure, if you were to start slaughtering baby seals on my front lawn, I might knock rather vigorously on the window. And if you decided Starbucks should be shut down for cruelty to coffee beans, then you and I are going to be stepping outside.

The closest I’ve come to a demonstration was in 1980 when Caligula opened in a Vancouver theatre and Brother #1 and I ventured in from the boonies to see us some nekkid wimin.

We were met by a group of placard-waving nutbars clogging up the sidewalk in front of the box office, intent on pointing out that a simple reel of celluloid was going to despoil every single human being for generations to come. Their bleating didn’t deter us from purchasing tickets but, just before we entered the cinema, I spotted a photographer from one of the Vancouver dailies taking a shot of a youngster sporting a protest sign.

I got in the shooter’s face and said something along the lines of, “Make sure you mention that they’re using children to do their dirty work.”

His only response was a grimace that basically said, “Bugger off.”

I shrugged and went inside to have my soul destroyed. Funny thing: I emerged a couple hours later, blinking in the sunlight, with my soul perfectly intact. The cameras had vanished and so too, interestingly enough, had the protesters. The photo of the child was never printed. All that effort, and for what?

You could call me lazy. Or apathetic. Or disinterested. Or a blinkered fool. You could say I’m sitting on my arse while the world dies around me. And you’d be wrong on all counts.

You see, I don’t believe you get a politician’s attention by standing by the trough and screaming yourself hoarse while he buries his snout in perks bought and paid for with your tax money. No, you get their attention by taking away the trough.

If you don’t like the way the world is being run, then you run the world. Step up or step away. Do something or stop bitching.

It’s as simple as that.

These professional anarchists are going to die on the same pollution-choked, rich-get-richer, Nuke a Gay Whale for Jesus planet as me. No amount of stone throwing or cop-baiting or blatant vandalism is ever going to change that.

The difference is, I’m going to go out with some degree of dignity. Those who incite riots for a living? Not so much.

My daughter accused me of stepping on her feet during the traditional father-of-the-bride dance at her wedding. I don’t remember doing that but I may not have noticed, so busy was I praying that the song would end soon, allowing me to retreat into the shadows so people would stop staring at me. And snickering.

But if I did flatten a few of my darling daughter’s tootsies, it’s not my fault. According to a story by the Telegraph Group Ltd (published in the Dec. 17 issue of the New Zealand Herald), “dad dancing” is a direct result of evolution.

Nature’s grand design, according to the story, is that the older we get, the worse our dancing becomes, thus sending a message to younger members of the opposite sex that basically says, “Stay away, I’m not fertile.”

Women, the story says, “gauge the testosterone levels of their dance partners by the style and energy of their moves.”

In other words, bad dancing = withered, decrepit sperm = “Back away from the ovaries, old-timer.”

Thank goodness for vital scientific research. For a minute there, I thought it was simply the ravages of gravity and the passing decades and too many lemon cranberry scones from Starbucks that were responsible for the fact that the only females paying attention to me these days are the ladies living in the residential care facility where I work. And they only like me because I know in which drawer they like to store their clean knickers.

Let me get this straight — I’m not old, I’m just past my Boogaloo’s best-by date? Whew!

Actually, I’ve never been much of a dancer. Oh, I can waltz — one-two, one-two — but my repertoire is pretty much limited to what I like to call the White Man’s Funky Chicken. It ain’t pretty, but no one gets hurt. And you can use the same moves for every single song ever invented. I know, I’ve done it.

If the mood strikes me, and I’ve chugged back a few too many Diet Cokes, I’ve also been known to demonstrate my version of the duck walk. Chuck Berry does it while playing the guitar. I don’t have an ax to grind, but I can do it backwards. Take that, Mr. Berry!

Oh, and I do have one move from Thriller, although Viking Woman has asked me never to do it again, lest Michael Jackson roll over in his grave and break something. I think I look like a dancing zombie. She says I look like a bear trying to crawl out of an open latrine.

Brother #2 has a move I’ve always envied. It ends with him sliding across the floor on his knees. Which looks absolutely stunning. Unless, of course, someone gets in the way, and then it just looks like human bowling.

I did try line dancing once, back in the days when Viking Woman and I were in the dating stage of our relationship. You know those times — when the guy will do practically anything to get some lovin‘, including cuddling and watching Meg Ryan movies.

Anyway, a group of us from work met at a country and western club and joined the line. I stood deep in the back so as not to get in anyone’s way. It didn’t work. I turned left when I should have gone right and ended up with the toe of someone’s cowboy boot jammed into my prostate. Which pretty much ended my line-dancing days. And ruined a perfectly good pair of boots.

The good news is, I won’t need an exam now for another 10 years.

It’s really too bad about my lack of rhythm and coordination. Because I was there when all those wild dances were invented: The Twist. The Frug. The Mashed Potato. The Watusi. The Swim. The Freddie.

They’re all gone now. Dead and buried. Distant memories. Something like my chances of ever  hooking up with a younger member of the opposite sex.

And that’s a real shame because I’ve still got a few moves left.

Here, check this ou . . .  owww!

Listen, could I bother you to put the wheat bag in the microwave for me? Two minutes on high and I should be good.

Viking Woman and I no longer exchange gifts. It’s sad, really, but necessary, considering our shortage of discretionary funds, small house and murky future. The last thing we need at this juncture is to add more “stuff,” more “things,” to the equation.

The gypsy lifestyle we’ve led this past decade resulted in items bought with kind thoughts and love often ending up donated to the Sally Ann or sold at a garage sale. It’s a harsh reality and one that can be tough on the old heartstrings.

Instead, we now watch others shop. While that’s a bit difficult in Napier, what with its lack of a mall, it was a pastime we enjoyed during our various stops in North America.

The seed for this type of voyeurism was initially planted several years ago while I battled the Christmas-shopping hordes in Langley’s Willowbrook Shopping Centre. I tend to take a list with me, go into a store, make a purchase from that list and then get the hell out.

My fellow shoppers did not seem so organized, often wandering the aisles, a panicked look illuminating their features, praying something — Please! God! — that would be of any interest at all to this cousin or that aunt would somehow catch their eye.

I fell to thinking what it would be like to sit in a mall during its final hours of operation on Christmas Eve. To remain still and calm while all those around me — a mental clock ticking, terror writ large on their faces, eyes bright and wide with hysteria — scrambled for those final gifts.

And one year we did just that. Sure, a large part of the reason why we were at the mall was to give some breathing space to the relatives we were bunking in with, but it was also to satisfy my urge to witness for myself the madness that is last-minute shopping.

It was beautiful. Scary and horrific and soaked with sweat and desperation, but beautiful nonetheless.

Viking Woman can swan around stores for hours, eying and touching and sampling and trying on clothes and shoes, but men aren’t wired like that. In-out-done is how it’s done on Planet Man, whether it’s shopping or, you know, other things.

Having said that, the lure of shopping in the U.S. always fascinated me. The Land of Milk and Excess, where the streets are paved with electronic appliances. That fantasy was probably fueled by dashing across the border in the 1980s for cheap gas, milk and ice cream, where we gazed upon chocolate bars and other sugary confections not available in Canada. Maybe it was window-shopping the boutiques in Las Vegas, standing alongside Viking Woman as she pressed her nose against the window of Jimmy Choo or Coach.

America! Land of the No-fee Credit Card, Home of the Brave Consumer!

Even I might find something to buy in that wonderland.

Sadly, the reality turned out to be deflating, the truth hidden behind the Oz-like curtain leaving me hollow and unfulfilled.

A stay in California did introduce us to new shopping experiences — Target! Sam’s Club! Macy’s! Nordstrom! 24-hour Wal-Marts! — but where was the magic? We lived within 20 minutes of one of those huge Westfield shopping centres to the east, and a 50-minute ferry ride from San Francisco to the west. We should have been literally tripping over wondrous things, like Ali Baba whispering “Open Sesame,” like Howard Carter falling to his knees in King Tut’s tomb.

But we did not find treasure. We did not find objects of wonder. The brand names may have been different, and there may have been more choices, but otherwise it was pretty much the same mundane items we could have bought at home in Canada.

It’s always disappointing when reality turn out to be constructed of false prophets and smoke.

But it only reinforced my belief that shopping should be a necessity and not a recreational pursuit.

Viking Woman asked me what I want for Christmas. I told her a hug would do quite nicely. I plan to give her the same in return.

Give a person a fish and they will eat today. Give a person a fishing rod and they will eat every day. Give a person a penis and they will act like an idiot. For. Frickin’. Ever.           — ancient bitemymoko proverb

I wasn’t going to bother adding my two cents’ worth to the controversy swirling around Tiger Woods but, hey, if you can’t kick a guy when he’s down, when can you kick him?

As Tiger is now discovering, nothing makes as much noise, nor is watched with such unbridled glee, as a hero tumbling from his pedestal. We build ’em up; we tear ’em down. Welcome to the human race.

There is a price to pay for stardom and it is this: Eventually we will eat you alive. That Tiger was the master of his own demise — by seeking to access every available hole with his putter even after leaving the course — just made this particular fall from grace all the more of a spectator sport. “Pass the popcorn, honey, someone else just cleaned Tiger’s balls.”

Another reason to chortle and point as Tiger’s ivory tower crumbles around him is his perceived aloofness, bordering on smug snobbery.

“I am the greatest golfer in history. I make billions of dollars and own a huge house filled with wonders. I am perfect and do not care what anyone thinks. So bugger the common people.”

Which is, apparently, exactly what he was doing.

But I’m not here to dredge up every golfing double entendre in the book. The actual purpose of this blog to point out a couple things that has left me stunned and amazed. More than usual, that is.

The first is why, when he has a smorgasbord waiting at home, Tiger would bother chewing on stale sandwiches.

I’m looking at all these slappers women now elbowing each other for the spotlight, claiming they too participated in Tiger’s short-stroke game, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the man not only lacks willpower, he may also be legally blind. I don’t claim to be the most discerning inhabitant of Planet Man, but not one of these star f*****s young ladies who gave Woods wood made me stand up and pay attention, if you catch my drift. In fact, I started itching just at the sight of them.

And then there was that strange code of silence. I don’t much follow golf (a game Mark Twain once described as “. . . a good walk spoiled.”) but I didn’t pick up even a whisper that Tiger Woods was straying.

And yet, within nano-seconds of his decision to engage in a bout of late-night, full-contact driving, the girlfriends were revealing themselves in droves.

And that’s what really scares me, the fact that not one of them had already been sniffed out by the dung beetles who work for the likes of TMZ and other assorted (and sordid) websites that have built their reputation on a foundation of fresh crap served daily.

If ladies of this ilk can keep a secret, who else is biting their tongue?

Remember the conspiracy theories over whether the moon landing was faked, or that there was more than one shooter involved in the JFK assassination? NASA and the government both pooh-poohed the respective theories, saying the truth would have eventually leaked out considering the number of people needed for such a coverup. The fact that no one has ever come forward with an alternative history is proof Armstrong and co. did indeed walk on the lunar surface and Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Uh, they may want to re-think that reasoning in the wake of this Tiger tale.

Wouldn’t it be terrible if everything you thought true were simply lies covered up by, well, everyone. I mean, what’s next? I suppose now you’re going to tell me the Nigerian prince, whose fortune I am helping to transfer into my bank account before the rebel army claims it, is a fake.

Yeah, right. Nice one.

My parents’ generation was horrified.

Accustomed to the low-key, silky-smooth crooning of the likes of Sinatra, Como, Bennett and King Cole, rock’n’roll’s jarring birth surely sounded like a bulldozer running over every cat in the world. While on fire. And exploding.

The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. The Who. The Animals. Elvis. Jimi. Janis. The Lizard King. It must have seemed like an alien invasion, come to destroy a civilization based on post-war conformity.

It was a sea change and one in which I was an active participant, if only because that’s what was blaring out of my tinny transistor radio. I picked strawberries for spending money through seven summers and, even today, when I hear a song from that era, I’m  instantly transported back to a time when I crawled on my knees through the dirt, disturbing slumbering snakes and nesting birds in pursuit of the rich, red sweetness of a full-breasted berry.

I stopped listening to the radio when disco arrived. Hated that shit then. Still do. I bought The Mother of My Children a Disco Sucks T-shirt as a Christmas present one year, so I like to think I helped kill that particular evil.

Even after disco did finally skulk away — the final coffin nail, apparently, being that oldies suddenly wanted to learn all those Saturday Night Fever moves, thus destroying disco’s exclusivity — my radio remained silent. I grew my hair to music circa 1964-71. Aural wizardry, all of it. Music released since then? Meh.

Other than some Springsteen or Petty, you’d be hard-pressed to find any post-’70s songs on my iPod. I’m a baby boomer and, for us, it may only be rock’n’roll but we like it.

Except, during those years when I wasn’t paying attention, rock mutated. Punk rock. Sex rock. Grunge. Metal. Heavy metal. Modern rock. And now I see references to something called noise rock.

What is noise rock, you ask? I have no flippin’ idea. But, personally, that’s the label I’d apply to all those goth freaks who, quite literally, scream — about death and destruction and dismemberment.

We once had a neighbor whose son fronted just such a travesty of a band. It was actually frightening to hear him practising because I was never quite sure if he was singing or gargling battery acid. Or had caught his pink bits in a wood chipper. I was pleased to finally move away.

I started thinking about music after reading a story on a wonderful new website called Review 2 A Kill (review2akill.com). The site is the brainchild of a group of talented and enthusiastic people, including my daughter, Brooke (missteenussr.com), and her husband, Nuv. (My son, Koleman, also contributes — yes, as a matter of fact we are a talented family).

While reading Nuv’s music column about rap — yet another music genre that has me contemplating ripping out my eardrums and beating them with a burning stick — it occurred to me that I knew absolutely nothing about any of the artists he mentioned, nor had I heard a single one of their recorded offerings.

This is partly a result of losing touch with today’s music but also because, if I hated disco, I despise rap, what with the never-ending whine of its woe-is-me-the-white-man-done-done-me-wrong lyrics and grade-school rhyming.

But perhaps the main reason I have such an intense dislike for rap is because it doesn’t speak to my generation.

And then it hit me, like a Stratocaster between the eyes: at some point while having children, assuming a mortgage, losing our hair and desperately attempting to squirrel away a retirement fund, we baby boomers ceased to be a Wild Thing. A Street Fighting Man. The Walrus. We no longer were born to be wild nor Born To Run.

We had, for all intents and purposes, become our parents.

The Who may have sung about being able to see for miles and miles, but I did not see that one coming. Bummer.

The calendar tells me tomorrow is my birthday.

To which I have two replies: “What, again?” and “Meh.”

As the years have flitted by in rapid succession, my birthday has become less and less significant to me. Maybe it’s living so far away from family and thus not being able to share the occasion with those who have been with me on this long journey. Or maybe it’s the lack of funds curtailing the purchase of something so perfunctory as a card (those things are bloody expensive in New Zealand! Actually, so is everything else in this country, come to think about it).

If someone asks how old I am, I routinely reply, “110.” That usually accomplishes two things: It tells the person I’m not going to give a serious (read: actual) answer, and also tends to elicit the response, “You’re looking good for your age.” All us oldies like to hear that.

If birthdays are a poke-in-the-eye reminder of the passing years, December birthdays are a sure indication that God hates you. Ot at least hates the concept of you receiving any decent presents that close to Christmas.

The fact my father and two younger brothers are also December babies gives you an indication of how stretched the family’s gift budget was once the year was into its final hurrah.

One brother, in fact, celebrates his birthday two days before me. It took years to figure out how I could be the oldest when his birthday comes before mine. Once I had that math worked out, I then spent several more years admonishing my parents about the fact they couldn’t stay off the rides at the Carnal Carnival long enough to ensure there was a decent gap between our conceptions.

Brother Number 1 and I eventually settled on celebrating our birthdays together, on the neutral day that conveniently separates us. That way, Mom only had to bake one angel food cake and the surprise of both us receiving socks and underwear (again!) wasn’t ruined for either of us.

The birthdays marking the decades stand out, of course. I was going to be on a six-month trek through Europe when I turned 20 and bid a fond farewell to my beloved teen years. Certainly a birthday marked on another continent doesn’t count at home, right?

But the six-month tour only lasted three weeks. Because I was in love. And a scared little puppy. But mostly because I was in love.

I was part of the generation that liked to bellow, “Never trust anyone over 30.” So you can imagine my dilemma when that birthday struck. Now I can’t even trust myself? Bummer.

Forty? Ah, 40. Viking Woman recruited the Brookswood Secondary cheerleaders to put on a special performance just for me at a surprise party. Part of me was saying, “I hate surprise parties!” The other half was saying, “I love cheerleaders!” So, yeah, mixed emotions on that one.

Fifty was OK, if only because the majority of my siblings decided that, as each of us hit the big five-oh, the others would kick in $50 apiece to mark the event. Which was excellent when it was my turn but not so cool when I was the one digging deep for the cash. Six kids? Seriously? You do know how to say “no,” right, Mom?

I like to think age is just a number on my birth certificate. It does not pay the bills nor does it require cuddling so, for the most part, I ignore it. I ignored disco and it went away, so my strategy obviously works.

They say age is relative and I proved that point when I hosted Teen Scene on Cook Islands Radio. Because of the show’s target audience, I perpetuated the myth of being only 19 years old . And why not? Rarotonga is, after all, one of those tropical islands where time really does stand still.

If all goes as planned, I will return to Raro early next year. I can’t wait. I’ll be a teenager again and be able to shake my thang all night long. Or until I trip over my walker and break a hip.

“You’re wearing your hair down,” I said to one of the young ladies who works as a caregiver at the seniors’ residence where I’m the Laundry Dude. “I like it.”

Because I’m a trained journalist and have often been paid to use my powers of observation, it only took me several minutes to notice what the new hair style was concealing: a bruise on her neck the size of an orange.

“Were you attacked?” I asked, my voice equal parts concern and naked, brazen curiosity.

“No,” she said.

“Then what the heck caused that?”

“I was on a date.”

“Yes? And?”

“And I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.”

Bad call. Because, when you leave something to the imagination on Planet Man, the first thought that comes to mind is sex. It’s also the second thought. And the third and . . . well you get the picture.

I’ve seen hickeys before but this one looked like the entire Cullen clan had come to dinner. And, yes, that was a Twilight reference. And, yes, that is how culturally hip I am. * fist bump *

I’ve delivered the occasional hickey in my time, I’ll have you know, although, come to think of it, no one has ever felt inclined to return the favor. Maybe I’m not as yummy as I like to think. * licks arm * Nope, tastes fine to me.

Brother Number One had no such problems in his younger days. We used to work together for a group providing activities for mentally disabled children. One day at a swmming pool, my bro caused the rest of us to raise our eyebrows when he entered the water still clad in his white T-shirt.

Except he forgot the first rule females learn soon after their breasts appear: white T-shirts become transparent when wet. (The second rule females learn is: Men will do anything for boob.) And so there for all of us to see was a collection of suckage marks strung across Brother Number One’s torso. Tiny love bites that spelled out: I Got Me Some.

It would appear that, while I was concentrating on other things, the idea of hickeys, and their use as a tool of passion, have somehow managed to drift out of my life.

These days, those precious moments before sleep often find Viking Woman softly snoring with a library book still propped open on her chest, while I read NHL game summaries and silently thank the Baby Jesus for the Internet so I can still follow my favourite teams while living in a country where rugby is king and every other sport is obviously played by poofters and nancy-boys.

The good news is that I can wet down my T-shirt and not reveal any secrets. The bad news is that no one in their right mind would ever ask me to hose down. Bummer.