Yesterday, his wife said,

“Darling, you don’t look

a day over sixty-nine.”

Yesterday, he wasn’t, but

today he’s seventy and

his wife said, “Darling,

you don’t look a day

over seventy,” and then

added, “but because you

have now successfully

made it through seven

decades and you have

entered the eighth (Is

that math correct, he

wondered. It just seem-

ed that seventy was bad

enough.), it’s time for

you to stop buying bot-

tom shelf vodka, espec-

ially on such an histor-

ically significant occas-

ion as this.”