Ogden Nash

Come on in, the Senility is Fine

People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,  
But you don’t have to live forever to become a grampa.  
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,  
You only have to live until your child has a child.  
From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder,  
Because sometimes you feel thirty years younger and sometimes  thirty years older.  
Now you begin to realize who it was that reached the height of  imbecility,  
It was whoever said that grandparents have all the fun and none of  the responsibility.  
This is the most enticing spiderwebs of a tarradiddle ever spun,  
Because everybody would love to have a baby around who was no  responsibility and lots of fun,  
But I can think of no one but a mooncalf or a gaby  
Who would trust their own child to raise a baby.  
So you have to personally superintend your grandchild from diapers  to pants and from bottle to spoon,  
Because you know that your own child hasn’t sense enough to come  in out of a typhoon.  
You don’t have to live forever to become a grampa, but if you do  want to live forever,  
Don’t try to be clever;  
If you wish to reach the end of the trail with an uncut throat,  
Don’t go around saying Quote I don’t mind being a grampa but I  hate being married to a gramma Unquote.
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