“Aye! Aye!! Come here, gul! Slim, you! Redtail! Redtail!! I know you hear me, gul! Why you gotta be like that gul?? Come on now, gul! Don’t be cruel, gul!”

My 55^th birthday party (which WILL be at The Park at Fourteenth in D.C. – or whatever replaces it) will play out JUST like that. I’m gonna see to that. By then, I figure the kids will be onto something else, so my pants will be alllllllll the way off my ass. Red Berry Ciroc for everybody! I’ll dance in my own world to the hits of my time: everything from “Gangsta’s Paradise” to “Right Thurr” will have the chickenheads…um…chickenheading…? Trust me, DJ Soulja Boy will have my Old School night jammin’! Yeeeaaah…ooooooohhhhhhh! Kill ‘em, Terio! Better yet, just manage your Huddle House. Sorry for the interruption, T. Feed ‘em. Girbaud jeans, Iceberg sweaters, and, of course, the final wardrobe piece of a man who’s lost touch with the times and couldn’t care less about it: the infamous Flying Durag.

Look, old people. 55 ain’t really that old. You can still do plenty of things like…I don’t know…use your Wii Fit twice a month and buy iPhones and use them to actually call people. Okay…those weird “dances” you do when “All Night Long” plays do make me chuckle a bit, I admit. Seriously, though; 55 is only old to a 27 year-old Black male that was fairly certain (and a little disappointed) that he’d be gunned down by SOMEBODY by now. I guess an awkward Rumba to ol’ Lionel is in order for me, too.

55 isn’t old at all. 55 is when you…settle down (maybe…? I don’t know how this life thing works) and read actual newspapers and suddenly forget how to use a computer. But it’s also around that glorious time you just stop caring. You fart in public (although SOME of you younger folk should be ashamed of yourselves; you ain’t earned that yet!), write checks at the grocery store, and enjoy how people’s opinions no longer matter. Let’s be clear: I do some sociopathic things but if I wear black FUBU jean shorts on U. St. on a Friday night, I’ll fall apart. 55 makes you blind to all that. Hence, the infamous Flying Durag.

“THESE FOLK WON’T HOLD ME BACK! THESE FOLK WON’T HOLD ME BACK! *Loses breath* THESE FOLK WON’T HOLD ME BACK!” Listen to that Rick Ross song again; he got tired after repeating it twice and fell off beat! Listen! Anyway…

I can see my birthday party now: all of my friends gathered around and their wives and husbands side-eyeing and judging them for still keeping in contact with me. The DJ spinning Youngbloodz records while I A-Town stomp happily. Me pulling on the elbow of some 22 year-old hardbody named Carlita telling her EXACTLY what I was doing in 2020. Flirting with the female bartender in an accent that inexplicably changed over the years to sound like the South Carolinian and Southern Georgian roots that combined to make me. And that damn infamous Flying Durag. That glorious Flying Durag. It’s almost as good as an A.A.R.P. card: you might not like me but, damnit, you will respect me for living this long! There I will stand: dressed in my leather and my Timbs like it’s 1998, throwing money at the yellow broads (do older men just get older and suddenly like light-skinned joints exclusively? Always wondered that. I’ll do some research…), and banging on the DJ table, yelling for him to play some Ma$e. With my infamous Flying Durag flowing in the breeze the entire time. Now, you tell ME: who hot, who not??

A.J. Armstrong looks forward to putting his arm around a young man wearing an ‘I’m a 2010s baby’ shirt and consoling him. He just doesn’t know, the poor soul. Saying I’m a 2010s baby is like yelling ‘vote or perish because of your lack of participation’ when the cooler kids just scream ‘vote or die’. Just saying. He’s also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities. My born date is also 1.2.86. Just in case you didn’t get the context clues. I want presents. Good presents. Amazing presents for entertaining you all. Hit me up for ideas on my presents. Seriously. You have less than two months. And don’t laugh, y’all; we’re all gonna get old at the same time. Have a nice day and get off my lawn.