I'M CONFESSIN - -

OK, I don't deny it. I actually was the one who did it.

I knew as soon as I got out of the car and headed toward the medical building. The stares. The smiles. The people talking to each other behind a cupped hand. Yeah, I knew right away, "they were talking about me."

I wanted to shout at the top of my voice, "Don't think I can't hear you snickering!"

It was embarassing. When I was a kid, I didn't have an original thought in my head. If my parents had named me Lawrence - I'd have been known as "Larry the Lemming." I was always trying to please everybody else. I had no backbone.

I was a shy guy who thought everybody was talking about me - making fun of my acne. But, now, I'm no longer shy - and my wrinkles cover everything. However, the truth was clearly staring me in the face. I had to ask myself, "Did I overreact?"

I had defied convention and now I was paying the price.

Yeah, I did the usual senior thing first, once I saw all the people looking at me. I went back into the car and checked my fly. I was amazed that this time I had zipped up before leaving the house. Don't even know why I cared. My underwear was clean.

It was Wednesday, the day I changed from Sunday's underwear.

"What's to worry about?", I thought. Still the stares were unnerving. I walked faster trying to finish my task and get back into the car safely before some thoughtless person said something..

I could already hear the voice of my sainted Irish mother shouting in my ear, "Barry, what were you thinking?"

Whereas at first I was embarassed, soon it was a little like going through the stages of grief. I now realized I was in the anger stage. "What right did they have to judge me?", I thought.

What was the right way for me to protest? How could I tell them they were the ones out of step - not me? I glanced at my reflection from the plate glass window in the corridor of the medical building. I could see I was wearing my maniacal Jack Nicholson smile. I swore then I would come up with something that would even the score.

Finally, I had it. When I got home I would do the unthinkable. I'd throw the cover, sheets, pillows and the mattress cover "helter - skelter" onto the floor. I'd then rip the label off the naked mattress - and post pictures of me with the mattress tag in my clenched fist all over the wall of the community post office.

I wasn't just mad. I was "darn mad."

I blamed it on being a Senior. As everyone knows down here Bealls Department Store has turned "Timid Tuesday" into Senior days - the day of the discount. Yesterday I succumbed.

The 401 k be damned! Bealls had their Cargo shorts on sale. I bought three pairs then carefully studied the cashier to make sure I got my 15% discount on each. It was the right decision.

Unfortunately, this morning I made a decision that kept my good decision streak at "one in a row."

I decided to wear a pair of my new shorts as I headed up to my doctors office for blood tests.

Yeah - I did it. Three pair of shorts and I had the stupidity to wear the white ones today on October 27th.

Mom was right. You just don't wear white after Labor Day! I'll never be able to face them again up at the lab.

It's not that I didn't care. It just seemed the white clamdigger shorts were the perfect color to wear with my pink golf shirt in honor of The American Cancer Society's "Strides Against Breast Cancer" competition.

You live and you learn.

But, "Hey Mom - just like you said - "Confession is good for the soul."

"Think Pink, gang!" This is a battle we can win.