Okay, I’ll admit it. After 37 years of marriage I could not remember my wife’s birthday. Was it April 22nd or the 23rd? I’ve always known this like I know the back of my hand, but now, when preparing to make a birthday dinner reservation for her and our kids, I could not, for the life of me, place it. This was particularly disturbing in retrospect since the 23rd is an enormously important date in our family. Her birthday is April 23rd, our son’s is May 23rd, and one of her brothers’ is March 23rd. But I couldn’t remember the 23rd. I thought, should I ask the kids? But then decided no, they would really worry about me if I admitted I couldn’t remember the day. I called my wife who was out of town on business and said, “Should I make the dinner reservation for Friday night or Saturday,” and she said, “Of course, make it Saturday on my birthday.” And then I knew. Being the sometimes moron that I am, at dinner on the night of the 23rd I admitted before her and my daughter that I had a momentary lapse of memory and could not recall whether or not her birthday was the 22nd or 23rd (it doesn’t escape me that I just admitted it also to the couple thousand people who read our blog). I had gotten away scot free, but I had to get it off my chest. My daughter, ever on alert to make peace, reminded me that I had just gotten over Covid that week (true) and that memory loss was part and parcel of that experience. Still, it freaked me out (and I think it freaked my wife out a little as well). This past weekend was my birthday, which she had no trouble remembering, and as I turned 69, I wondered if I was losing my mind. The other thing I wondered is that when I hit 70 next year, can I still write the New 60. My much younger comic partner John, said yes. And if you combine our ages and take an average, it only comes out to 66 1/2. So there. The other thing I thought about is that this would make a good comic. And John agreed.

Our other effort this week is a version of something that was inspired by a friend of John’s, Tony DiBernardo.. As the Dan Fogelberg song “Same Auld Lang Syne” goes, “I stole behind her in the frozen foods and I touched her on the sleeve.” Well John’s pal saw his wife up ahead and used a cheesy pick-up line from a Steve Martin movie But we came up with a new twist and something even cheesier. Al says, “You’re way too hot to be standing in the frozen food aisle,” And then the twist.. Whoops. Happens to the best of us. At least in the comics, where we can make anything happen that we want. And to that end, we’re making up two new ones for next week. See you then and have a great weekend. Just don’t get caught in the frozen food aisle all by yourself.

Andy and John