August 6, 2008, seven in the evening, work's done, I'm feeding the baby and relaxing at home with "The Wizard Of Evergreen Terrace", a rare episode of the Simpsons I don't remember much about....
Homer is driving, listening to the inane DJs on KBBL:
DJ: Okay, here's another News Flush! [toilet flush sound] Doctors say the life expectancy of the average man is now seventy-six point two years!
Homer: [gasps and spins his car out across the highway ] Seventy-six point two? But I'm already thirty-eight point one! I've wasted half my life!
This sends Homer into a deep depression that provides the impetus for the episode's plot. And it kind of depressed me, too, for I calculated that on that day I was 38 years and 43 days old. Which rounds to... thirty-eight point one.
I did not need to know that I am as old as Homer Simpson.
(Later in the episode, Marge reminds Homer that he's actually 39. Which sent him moaning into a fetal position, yet cheered me slightly. Only slightly. I can't shake the feeling that I've wasted half my life watching Simpsons reruns.)
