Weekly Hypothetical – What’s The Ideal Logan’s Run Age?

I realized after posting my extreme rant on the elderly yesterday that I had omitted another thing that pissed me off when I was hiking: Ultra-Lesbian Hate-Hikers. Look, I don’t care what anyone’s sexual preference is. It’s none of my business who sticks what into where, or who rubs this, or who licks that. And for the record, I think gay people deserve the right to be as happy as the rest of us, and that includes serving in the military and getting married if that’s what floats their boat. I don’t know what kind of barely viable relationships the politicians behind the Defense of Marriage Act have, but my marriage is not threatened by two dudes giving each other reach-arounds in private. Fuck it, who cares?

But as I was descending down a long trail headed towards the trailhead parking lot yesterday, I ran across the kind of people that make others dislike gay people. Coming up the trail were a couple women who looked like Cagney & Lacey had been brainwashed and forced to take Womyn’s Herstory classes at a community college for ten years straight while listening to Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen Degeneres sing Melissa Etheridge songs while Oprah (admit it) hit them over the head with a brick. Again, don’t really care, except I noticed as I was approaching them that there was something odd going on…

40-something woman: Good morning!

Lesbians: Good morning!

Two Male College Students: Good morning!

Lesbians: (Death stare)

Two Female College Students: Hi!

Lesbians: Hi! How are you?

30-something male with small (male) child: Hi!

Lesbians: (Death stare)

Me: Uhhh… Hi.

Lesbians: (Death stare)

Don't look up "Bull Dykes" on Google Image Search. Just... just don't.

Fucking get over yourself, ladies. No one was out there to repress your sexuality. No one was out there to discriminate against you. And from the looks of you two, I can honestly say that you were in no danger of being sexually harassed. People were out there to have a good time and were in a friendly mood, so they (politely) said hi to you. And if these people happened to be male, you treated them as if they’d personally douched you with Tabasco sauce. If it has been your experience in life that people dislike you, you may want to consider that you may be disliked for the same reason raging homophobes are disliked: You’re lousy human beings.

There, now that I’ve got Oprah’s team of trained assassins on my trail, it’s time for our weekly hypothetical which comes from Anonymous. (Anonymous? That’s weak, Mr. President. Very weak.) The question is:

Regarding your post yesterday, in a Logan’s Run scenario what would be the perfect age for one to renew?

He also added as a postscript a comment that compared my usage of commas to that of a sixth grader. You sure know how to pour on the charm, don’t you Anonymous? I will have you know that I adhere to the Elements of Style guidelines for comma usage, which I imagine are as follows:

• Use commas to extend a sentence well beyond the bounds of what is rational, even if it results in a run-on sentence that is longer than War And Peace.
• Use commas to denote a separation of entities as in this sentence: “Go fuck yourself with a doorknob, broomstick, or cinder block.”
• Use, commas to denote, that you, have, a comma key, on your, keyboard.

So, there. ,

I know the difference, Anonymous. Do you?

As for your question, a little bit of explanation for our younger readers may be in order. In the 1967 novel Logan’s Run (and the 1976 movie of the same name), a dystopian society is held in equilibrium by mandatory euthanasia, or in English, when you reach a certain age you are killed. In the book, you only live until you’re 21. In the movie, 30. (In the movie, over the hill people of 30 are “renewed” in a quasi-religious ceremony believed to be part of a process of reincarnation.)

If you’ve ever been stuck behind a senior at a salad bar, the benefit of this plan is obvious: You no longer have to deal with someone mystified by beets. But where do you draw the line? I don’t think many people would agree that the cutoff should be 21. You’ve got way too much drinking and sex in front of you to want to check out when you’re 21. And when you’re 30, your hormones have settled down enough where you can finally have a rational thought without it being interrupted by…

Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, the Logan’s Run age. 40. You should check out at 40. Now I’m 42, so I’m not some dipshit Pete Townshend claiming he wants to die before he gets old, and then playing that song on fucking tour until he’s 80 and drooling. I know whereof I speak, and I’m telling you that 40 is a great age to check out. You’ve had enough time to do most everything (especially if you never got around to having kids), and everything seems to be going downhill in every other regard. For instance, this is a conversation I had with my doctor.

Me: I go hiking a lot, and my knees hurt.

Doctor: I bet.

Fuck you, doc. I’m glad that ObamaCare is going to relegate you to a position where you are as respected as a Jiffy Lube attendant only with less access to drugs. But back to turning 40. Your eyesight is going, it’s harder to keep from growing what I presume is a thermal layer to insulate me from the ravages of the Arctic, and any kids you have are quick to point out that you are old and have no idea what is cool anymore. The only obvious solution is to rack up some serious debt and then “renew”, leaving it all to those little bastards.

So there you have it, Anonymous! 40 is the new Logan’s Run age, and as you seem to be so very interested in this topic, I’m, volunteering, you, to, go, first.

Youth in Asia. (Sorry, that was horrible.)