The other day we were in Costco getting my hearing aid repaired when an old guy walked up and made me feel like a kid again.

He said he was 90 and did not have a cane. He said he had never smoked or drank but when I asked if he still chased women his rheumy eyes lit up like beacons on a foggy night and he grinned.

He never did explain the leering but I assumed his prancing goat days were just a memory. Then his wife showed up and he stopped drooling. When you grow too old to . . . dream.

Then she dragged him away and I wended my way past the lifetime supply of cashews and almonds, past the carload sized aspirin boxes, over to the 62-inch flat screen tellys that bring you HD which I thought meant Hard Driver until a clerk told me it meant Huge Dollars.

Might have to give up my crystal set as the cat whisker is worn to a frazzle.

What good is a humungous set unless it is on a female volleyball player at Zuma Beach?

Does it help to have a huge really sharp picture when your home team plays such lousy ball? Just makes you cry louder observing the injustice of the whole system.

No trigger theaters for us the other night. I am sick of jumping up and running to the door and handing candy bars to greedy little grubbers dressed like pirates, which is what they are.

We turned off all the lights outside, lit a small flickering candle and listened to our hearts beat when the kids, some as big as the Lakers, peer into the window refusing to believe anyone can turn down their entreaties.

Wait 'em out I say. They will go next door eventually.

I hope they don't put our shay on top of the barn again this year.

Damn kids.