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A short while back, I was at a restaurant enjoying dinner with some friends. At this particular restaurant there were lots of TV monitors, most of which were tuned to ESPN. Watching lots of athletic competition can really work up a thirst, so we were fortunate in that this particular restaurant employs an all female workforce clad in short shorts and tight tops. I quickly deduced that their ensembles helped them go to and from the bar with a minimal amount of wind resistance, which is a good thing as no one wants a slow waitress. Efficiency means profits in the restaurant business, you know.

Anyway, as we all sat around talking, the story about the trade of Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal to the Miami Heat came on one of the monitors. As is typical, when a big trade like this is consummated, there's lots of talk about which team gave up what, who got the best of the deal, and what it will all mean in the future. And, right in the middle of that discussion, one of the guys in our group posed one of the greatest philosophical questions of all-time. It went something like this,

'Wouldn't it be something if you could trade your spouse just like they trade the players on these pro sports teams?'

An intriguing question, huh? It was for me in that my mind just couldn't let go of it. A couple of thoughts came to mind immediately, and I think that I'll take a moment and talk about them...

1. Most of us guys joke that if wives were like cars, we'd trade them in for newer models. It sounds funny and all, but the truth is that I happen to like the older models better. They're plusher, better equipped, and a little preventative maintenance means that they can be driven forever. (I meant it a while back when I told you ladies that I like women with meat on their bones). Mature women are just my bag, I love 'em, always will.

Another thing we middle aged guys would have to consider is that most of us would be run ragged by a twenty something year old woman. We obviously don't want to admit that, but it's true. We'd have to invest mucho dollars to pay for hair transplants, gym fees, and the wardrobe upgrades necessary to pursue a truly younger woman. Do we impending codgers really want to have to go through all that just for the right to conk out? The answer, I think, is a definitive 'no.'

2. Most women also kid around that they'd love to trade in their current middle aged guy for a younger man. The only problem is that for them it'd work - all the studies conducted on this particular topic show that a woman hits her peak in her late thirties to forties, as opposed to us guys who hit ours in our late teens to mid-twenties. A middle aged woman who takes good care of herself could go out and get younger guys to follow her around all day long. Hey, I'll admit to it right here and now - if a good looking middle aged woman had hit on me back when I was twenty, I would've dropped to my knees and given thanks for my good fortune. Look, it's a young man's biggest fantasy to enjoy a middle aged woman who's willing to show them what life is all about. Heck, I get excited thinking about it even now, and I'm so old that the hair on my scalp doubled might make one full head of hair. I shouldn't even be thinking about this, but I guess we all have to let our minds roll around in the gutter sometimes.

So what do all these revelations tell us? For starters, we middle aged guys need to start kissing up to our ladies a tad more. Don't get me wrong, we can all still like wrestling and NASCAR and Elvis, but we really ought to think about putting in a little more effort towards keeping our fine, mid-vintage women happy and satisfied. Let's face it, making that effort would be a lot less painful than doing the hair transplant thing and having them pull those big plugs of hair out of your neck, or having to run ten miles a day in the gym in order to keep your gut toned down, or pretending to like salad with low cal dressing sloshed upon it three meals a day or.....