It was a Tuesday evening in late October when the friend request came through. I was in my recliner in the living room, the one with the duct tape on the left armrest, half-watching a rerun of *Cheers* on the local channel that still plays them. Outside, the streetlight on Maple Avenue flickered through the blinds, and the radiator was doing its usual hiss and clank routine — the one that sounds like a distant relative knocking to be let in. I had a mug of chamomile going cold on the side table and the cat, an overweight tabby named Otis, sprawled across my feet.
The notification buzzed on my phone. Facebook. A friend request from a woman I didn’t recognize. The name read Chloe, and the profile picture showed a twenty-something with beachy waves and a smile that had probably sold a thousand lip glosses. I squinted at it. I’m fifty-seven, and for a second, my brain did the math: what business does a girl who could be my daughter have with someone who remembers where he was when Reagan was shot?
Curiosity got the better of me. I tapped “Accept.” Otis shifted, annoyed by the vibration of my laughter. I wasn’t on Facebook much — mostly to keep up with my buddy Tony’s fishing photos and the occasional argument in the comments of a classic rock page. This was new territory.
Less than ten minutes later, a message popped up in Messenger.
*Hi! How are you tonight?*
Polite. A little too polished, maybe, but I played along. I typed back something bland about the Packers’ chances this season. She replied with a winking emoji and a line about how I must be a “distinguished older guy with stories.” That’s when my neighbor’s dog, a beagle with a death wish, started howling at the mail truck three houses down. I swear, that animal has a sixth sense for the moment a conversation gets weird.
Chloe pushed on. “How old are you?” I told her the truth. Fifty-seven. She came back with “Wow, you look so good for your age” — which was odd, because my profile picture is a blurry shot of me holding a walleye from 2019, sunglasses on, hat pulled low. Not exactly a modeling portfolio. Then she said, “Can we talk about adult things?”
I paused. Set down the mug. The cat yawned.
In my day, “adult things” meant mortgage rates, the best way to clean a carburetor, or whether the spots on your skin were something to mention at your next physical. But the tone of her message — the little heart emojis she’d started sprinkling in — suggested a different interpretation. So I grinned, adjusted my reading glasses, and typed back, “Sure, we can talk about adult things.”
“Thank you, handsome… you start,” she replied.
So I did.
I told her my knees sound like a fresh bag of microwave popcorn every time I stand up from this recliner. I told her about the lower back pain that arrives three days before a storm, way more reliable than the Weather Channel. I mentioned the swollen ankles after a ten-hour day at the auto shop, and the indigestion that comes knocking if I even look at a slice of pepperoni pizza after 8 p.m. I told her about the insomnia — how I’ll be wide awake at 3 a.m., listening to the house settle and wondering if Otis is plotting something. I told her about the reading glasses I lose at least twice a day, only to find them on my head.
I went on. I shared my love for music that actually had a rhythm section: Steely Dan, CCR, a little Etta James when I’m cleaning the gutters. I confessed that I sometimes walk into the kitchen and forget what I came for, then end up reorganizing the junk drawer for twenty minutes. I described the weird leg cramp that hits at dawn, the one that makes me lunge out of bed like I’m reenacting the final sprint of a race I never trained for.
I was on a roll. I typed out the truth of adult life: the fact that the most exciting part of my Saturday is driving to the hardware store for a new washer to fix the drippy faucet. That a good night is one where nobody calls, nobody texts, and the remote control is exactly where I left it. That I’ve reached the age where “adult conversation” means comparing cholesterol numbers with Tony over a cup of black coffee at the diner on 52nd Street.
The radiator clanked again. Otis purred. I hit send on that last message and waited.
One minute. Two. The three little dots started bouncing. Then they stopped.
I refreshed. Nothing. Sent another message: “Too real for you?” It didn’t deliver. I’d been blocked.
I sat there, phone in hand, the blue light shining in my face, and I started laughing. Not a polite little chuckle — a real, deep laugh that made Otis jump off my feet and shoot me a look of betrayal. I turned off the TV. Picked up my cold tea and walked it to the microwave. The kitchen smelled faintly of the lemon-scented cleaner I’d used that afternoon, the one that’s supposed to be “non-toxic” but still makes Otis sneeze. Through the window over the sink, the neighbor’s beagle, now silent, was curled up on its porch. The sky had cleared, a sharp autumn brightness that made the moon look like it didn’t need a filter.
I poured the reheated tea into the mug with the chip on the rim that I refuse to throw away because it fits my hand just right. Sat back down. Otis, forgiving, resettled on my lap. I opened the classic rock station app and hit play. The first chords of “Reelin’ In The Years” came through, and I cranked the volume enough to rattle the windows. Otis tucked his head under my hand, and the bass thumped through the recliner, through my chest, right up until the vocals kicked in.
