What's in and what's out? We're always trying to fit in-it's part of being human. However, if you're like me, sometimes, we miss the mark by just a little and before we know it we're out.

I'm going for my annual physical next month and since my last physical I've lost some weight and for the first time in a long time, I'm not dreading what I affectionately call "my annual pookie-poke" (in spite of that part which I still hate). Guys, you explain it to your wives. On the other hand, maybe women don't need any 'splainin' in that department. Hopefully my doctor won't give me "the talk" about my weight this year. Maybe he won't start his dictation at the end of my appointment with, "I've just seen a well nourished 59 year old patient..." Well nourished is a polite way to say fat in the medical world.

So my BMI may be getting within spitting distance of kinda close to almost acceptable. Or something like that. But still I want to be weighed on a slightly broken scale after stepping onto it buck naked and being weighed while standing on one leg......I know...not the best visual....but that's too damn bad because it may take an extra 1/4 pound off of my medically recorded weight for the next year. A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

Knowing my luck, right after I get off the scale, here is what the doctor is going to say: the Surgeon General is now advising that being thin can adversely affect your health. It is now recommended that every adult male weigh at least 20 pounds over what we previously recommended as the ideal body weight. Being too thin can cause problems such as being hangry, severe irritation with others and poor judgment in voting patterns (see Brexit and Donald Trump). It would be just my luck to lose the weight and reach my ideal weight just as it's medically the wrong thing to do. Just when I'm close to being in, I'm out. It happens to me all the time and has happened all my life. For example....

When I was a senior in high school, a group of guys talked about having a picture taken for a yearbook ad. The plan was to take the picture in front of a local massage parlor which sounded very cool with an air of scandal and defiance thrown in for good measure. What (insecure) 17 year old could resist? How badly I wanted to be included as part of that group for that one picture for that one day. They finally pulled the trigger and took the picture and I guess "The Sensuous Eight" didn't have the same ring as "The Sensuous Seven" because if it did, I'm sure they would have included me.

Why having my picture taken in front of a massage parlor, recorded for posterity in the ad section of our yearbook, seemed so important to me then, seems utterly ridiculous to me now. However, at the time, I really wanted to put on the long, trench coat and look at the camera like a flasher/pervert like they all did, high aspirations being what they are. I wonder if today they all occasionally get together after golfing at their local Country Club and talk about that day affectionately while their wives sip on gin and tonics and discuss what's on sale at Nordstoms. And I wonder if they brag to their children about how great it was to dress like a pervert in front of a massage parlor and how much better that experience made their lives. As for me-not close to being in, so definitely out.

About a year ago, we inherited a beautiful antique French marble and bronze clock and placed it on the mantle in our living room. It completed the look of the room we'd been working on for 25 years which included an antique chest of drawers, an old pine corner cupboard and a beautiful inlaid slant top desk inherited from my grandparents. We had finally finished collecting and furnishing it exactly as we wanted it with exactly the right pieces of antique furniture. Done. Check. Completed. That room could be in the Wilson version of Architectural Digest - the Home Edition of the Wilson Times. Finally, we're in. Hypothetically, at least. They haven't actually asked us. Yet.

Then this week's episode of Antiques Roadshow was the show with earlier appraisals and then the 2016 reappraisals. You know that episode, right? The one that makes you feel either really rich or really stupid? At the end of the segment comparing the two, if bells ring, it's good news because the price has gone up. But if you hear the ugly fog horn, bad news, because the price has gone down. Sometimes way down. I was shocked at how far antique values have fallen in the past 5-7 years. The antiques we've spent our adult life collecting, or we've inherited from our family, appear to be worth half or less than we thought they were worth. Big time fog horn. Out. Out. Out.

The Millennials (a/k/a our children) don't like "brown furniture". Or French things. Or anything else we like or have collected. Just when we were almost in, we're thrown out - with the rest of our stuff on the way to the yard sale. Or Salvation Army. Or worse-the dump.

Today I was watching HGTV and even our house is out and tiny houses are in. What the hell is up with that? Who wants to live in a house with 150 square feet? We used to call those play houses, dog houses or out houses, depending on the neighborhood you live in. Those are IN? Out again.

Clearly I'm so out I'm totally useless. Except for my credit cards-they're always useful, so maybe not all is lost and I'm a still a little in. Kids are always interested in parental credit cards no matter their age. My credit card is Visa and their motto is -Everywhere you want to be and I want to be everywhere!

No-wait-now, there's Apple Pay. They're everywhere you are not everywhere you want to be. Even my dang credit card is becoming useless. Visa won't be anywhere with me but Costco. (Inside joke. Google it.) Out again.

It's time to call Joyner's Funeral Home and pre-pay my funeral expenses because I'm so out before much longer I'll be out the door and in the ground where I belong. Then my children can bury me in a long trench coat, holding my favorite (worthless) antique clock, paid for with my almost-no-good Visa with a medical chart of my diet progress (or lack thereof) in my cold, dead hands. Out once and for all.

And before I've been in the ground for very long, my children will quickly find out that they'll soon be out. And their kids will start the march forward to take their rightful place at the head of the table in life. And maybe they'll love antiques and normal sized houses and bigger waistlines just as their grandparents did. And they will hate Apple Pay and painted furniture, tiny houses and skinny bitches and all the things their parents love and hold dear...and the circle of life continues.

And from above (or probably below) I'll watch and laugh and feel very in. Finally. Not that it will do me any good since I'm very over and out. Again. Damn.