Life goals of an ageist slob.

If I were the oldest man in the world, I would start a convention for old men. I do not mean for AARP members. I mean for the ten oldest men in the world. The membership changes very often, and sometimes the 11th oldest man goes in place of the 7th oldest, who is in a hospital dying. This is not a tragedy, as he is the 7th oldest man on the planet and has been very happy this last year or so.

Each year at the convention for the world's oldest men, everyone goes for dinner at a nondescript diner in New Jersey. This diner has not been written up in any travel guides as one of the "top ten charming destinations on the East Coast," nor has it been designed to look like the 1950s. But it does have free coffee refills, fairly decent banana cream pie, and a cynical but good-looking waitress who provides fodder for conversations about women from their youth.

Topics of discussion include growing up in the late 19th century, which war was the most interesting/devastating, and what may be happening at this year's convention for the world's oldest women (in a tea house in Kyoto). The oldest man is always the keynote speaker, and usually has prepared a rambling speech approximately 17 minutes long dedicated to his predecessor or predecessors, depending on how many of the world's oldest have passed away in the last year. Sometimes he will have very little notice, and sometimes he will have assumed - based on the frail health of last year's keynote speaker - that he should be prepared with something witty.

Language barriers surface frequently. Also, they have little in common except their fortunate old age and their very arbitrary gender. The American delegates almost always fight about the New Deal. As the convention consists only of that one, albeit lengthy meal, delegates from overseas suspect they have wasted a lot of time and money on airplanes. Sometimes a wizened man teeters through the doorway waving a signed doctor's note to the effect of, "This man is probably old enough for your club even though he never got a birth certificate and his age cannot be verified."

At the end of the convention, everyone jumps in a chartered airport bus. Some will try to get others' phone numbers and tips for befriending estranged grandchildren, who are probably battling menopause and prostate cancer. At the airport, they will all shuffle (or roll) to their respective terminals, and hope it will be their chance to give the keynote address next year.