There is a sign on the half and half carton that says “Grade A”.

There’s also a sign that the cream comes from cows who weren’t influenced to increase production through the use of pharmaceutical intervention.

These cows that made the stuff that makes my coffee tasty weren’t on the “juice”.

That’s good.

I’d get huge if I drank the milk from the steroid cows.

I thought about that when I came back upstairs with my coffee….and sat down to write this blog.

Half and half….grade A.

I can pinch more than an inch now. I discovered that when I sat down and thought about what “Grade A” means.

My belly is turning into a belly.

How does that happen? I’ll bet that it gets bigger if I sit and think about how it happens too much.

If I ponder too much of what is happening to me….I’ll bet that I’ll get more of the same.

I don’t think that it’s completely the normal course of events, either.

People getting up in years….or working their way towards getting up in years….get a belly.  You get comfortable and settle into comfort….and you get a belly.

That sounds nice….settling in to comfort, that is.

But I wonder if it’s really normal?

It’s common…everybody seems to do it.

But why? Why all these body changes? Is it sitting in the mail jeep a little too many delivery days….not moving for 5 or 6 hours at a pop…coming home and sitting on the couch or mowing the lawn or doing something else that’s not aggressively aerobic?

Is it me? Do I have any control over this belly….or is it just the way things are?

The half and half carton says “Grade A”.

Somebody wrote that on the carton to make me feel better about drinking it.

Somebody wrote that so I would trust those cows.

I don’t have any grade stamp….that I know of.

I have a reputation, I guess….good and bad.

It all depends on who you talk to.

I try and pay attention to the people who think that I’m “alright”.

I’m sure there’s a lot out there who think that I’m sort of a goob.

But…I don’t have any kind of visible stamp of approval.

This belly thing….kind of creeps up on you.

One day, you look in the mirror and say, “WHAT?!”

That’s the deal with getting older and changing….you better get used to the “what?!” moments…or your head might explode.

Hopefully, you have more going on in your life than just an obsessed concern with a growing belly.

Maybe that’s the beauty of growing older?

You fill your life with so much that self-absorption isn’t as easy as it was before you took on so many responsibilities.

I never had washboard abs.

It wasn’t like that.

But, I don’t think that I want to go around feeling like someone duct taped a bean bag chair to my abdomen.

Something has got to be done about this middle of mine.

SOMEBODY!!! WON’T SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE BELLY ON MY BELLY?!!

MY BEAUTIFUL “GRADE A” BELLY?!! (MADE IN THE USA)