I'm Not Gonna Lie Read Online Free PDF

want. This was a dream tub. You turned the water on and lay back as the water splashed up, over, and all around you. Your whole body pulsated with pleasure. You could adjust the intensity and temperature to your heart’s content. And the best part? When you were finished, you just reached over, shut the water off, stood up, opened the door, and stepped out.
    Brilliant.
    I wanted one of those. I wanted one bad.
    â€œLook at that tub,” my friend RJ said. “You have to be an idiot to waste money on one of those.”
    â€œSeriously,” I said.
    â€œPeople are so gullible. They’ll buy anything. A tub like that? You gotta be seventy years old and an invalid, or live in an old-age home, or walk with one of those canes with suction cups on the bottom that stick to the floor.”
    â€œSeventy? Really? I don’t know; you could be maybe sixty-five or even fifty—”
    â€œAnd who was that old-guy pitchman?” RJ asked. “His face looked like a prune.”
    â€œNo idea.”
    â€œYou have to be a pussy to take a bath, anyway.”
    â€œI know, right?”
    â€œOr older than crap.”
    â€œBaths? Ha-ha-
ha
!
Baths.
”
    â€œI’m gonna get another beer; you want one?”
    â€œNah, I’m good. Thanks. I already had two.”
    â€œYou’re not going anywhere. Have another one. You’re such a lightweight.”
    â€œLightweight? Me? Right. Ha!
”
    RJ left the room. I waited until I heard him banging around the kitchen before I furiously copied down the phone number that crawled along the bottom of the screen across Pat Boone’s Hawaiian shirt, while good old Pat repeated it three times slowly for those of us who are older than crap.

SAFE SOX

SPEAKING of golf . . .
    Late one afternoon, a week after I turned fifty, I walked the back nine on a golf course near my house. The course was empty, so I took my time, strolling leisurely until it started to get dark. This is one of my favorite times of day on a golf course. I love late afternoon, when the shadows get long and the light turns a soft shade of purple, and I love early morning, when the air is cool and crisp and smells of freshly cut grass.
    That afternoon I walked alone down the fairway, stopping occasionally to hit a few shots. I didn’t keep score. I rarely do. I’m not interested in the number. How I play is much more important to me than how I score.
    As shadows spread over the fairway and darkened the rim of a peanut-shaped sand trap, for some reason I saw a vision of myself as a ten-year-old boy. Me and golf. We go way back together. More than forty years. And whenever I imagine myself as a kid, I’m not playing baseball or the guitar or riding a pony; I’m holding a golf club and smiling.
    I taught myself how to play. I’d always loved watching golf on TV, especially the majors—the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA, and my favorite, the British Open, now called the Open. During commercials, I’d grab this old rusted golf club my grandmother kept around the house and I’d go into the backyard. I’m not sure how we ended up with a golf club. I think it was in case we heard a noise.
    We didn’t have any golf balls, but we had the next-best thing: a lemon tree. I figured lemons are sort of round—well, oval, but in the round family—and even though a lemon doesn’t have dimples like a golf ball, it has a rough surface. I thought it was a pretty good substitute. Hey, I was ten. At least I knew that a grapefruit probably wouldn’t work.
    I pulled a bunch of lemons off the tree and placed them on the ground. I stepped up to each one and, copying the form I’d seen my favorite golfers use, in particular Lee Trevino, I got into my stance and swung at the lemons, cranking it up with all I had, trying to hit those lemons over the backyard fence.
    I learned pretty quickly that lemons are not at all like golf balls.
    If you