Well, if that ain’t a humdinger. To find out — on a bag of dog food of all places — that your pooch is a senior citizen. That’s what Purina says about my dog, Chase. She is at least 8 years old, and that must make her an old fart.

Dog food manufacturers, and maybe others, seem to think that 7 years or older starts the beginning of the “age.” To me that’s when dogs are in their prime.

For that matter, if you apply the 7-dog-years-to-1-human-year ratio, any of our breed 49 or older is also a senior, and needs to be put on this specially formulated diet with added fiber, crude fat and chicken by-product. Hate to be the bearer of bad news.

I found this all recently while researching dog food. I wanted to make sure I was feeding Chase the best there is. I wanted food that was good for her joints, would keep her sturdy and strong, would make her coat shine like a newly polished car, wouldn’t let her eyesight sag and, most importantly, wouldn’t make her throw up all over our rug like the last time we switched food. Personally, I found her food a little grainy, and it didn’t go well with milk.

So I researched, and WHAM!

Chase?!? Old?!?

Naw. that dog has more energy than shaken plutonium and can still drool with the best of them.

Yet, Purina calls her a “senior dog.” Iams calls her “actively mature.” Actively mature? Is that opposed to “Lazy lard-butt immature” or “self-important, upwardly mobile senior”? Maybe “Upper crust unwieldy snorts-too-much elderly”?

Let’s not sugar coat it. Why not call the food “Grandpa nuggets.”

Fine, she’s getting up there in years, but I don’t want my dog getting old, or some dog food company telling me it’s happening without my permission. I can’t picture her one day with a walker and fake teeth talking about the “olden” days when squirrels used to slip her money so she wouldn’t chase them.

“I tell you, sonny, it was a much safer world back then. You could use the bathroom wherever you wanted and nobody made you pick it up in a plastic bag.”

She’s still so energetic and spry that most people often mistake her for a puppy. Well, until they get close enough to catch a whiff of her breath, or she curses like a sailor.

I always pictured her one day taking care of me. That she would help me down the steps at my house when I’m older and hold my arm for support. Then she would catch sight of lizard, leap over the railing, and leave me to fold up like a wrinkled shirt.

By no means is she ready to be put out to pasture. She can still leap higher than I can, run faster than wild horses and in defense of her math skills, she has never once been audited by the IRS.

But there is a bit more gray in her face and she spends more of her time doing crosswords these days. She does like to take her dinner earlier in the evening.

Oh, it’s not easy watching anyone grow older, and no easier when it’s a pet. She’s my kid! She can’t be older than me, and maturity? I’ve seem dead leaves that are more mature than she is.

We asked our vet, Dr. Nicholas, whether we should start doing anything different with her as she ages ungracefully. Maybe not let her jump so much, or stop her from climbing trees.

“It’s better to wear out than to rust out,” I think he said, and it’s good advice for all of us, dog included.

So we’ll switch her to the “seniors” diet and wait for her AARP card to arrive in the mail. Aging is something we all have to come to terms, and we’ll do it with her, too. But watch out lizards, that dog still has a lot left in her yet.

It’s time to take the war, the great battle, to the next level.

Oh, I’ve been fighting it most of my life — this struggle, this great occupation. I have turned plowshares into swords (whatever that means) and raised the flag of war.

It’s my familiar battle cry used when I tackle weeds, my shed or whenever my mother wants me to try something new.

Now it’s for mosquitoes, and I’m waiting on the ultimate weapon. Come on, postman, bring it to my door.

Mosquitoes in Florida come like driving rain. They’re especially bad this time of year because the dollar is weak and bugs from other countries are finding terrific airfare on online travel sites.

They’re swarming in my yard and making life miserable outside.

I’m tired of breathing citronella fumes, which I’m convinced only makes mosquitoes punch drunk. They become a bit more wobbly, ask for a lot of spare change and drool on you as they’re biting. And I’m tired of wearing two layers of clothing and chain mail when I go outside.

So I’ve taken the advice of my neighbor, John, who told me to get a Mosquito Magnet. I was skeptical at first. There have been any number of gimmicks and mosquito-killer products over the years — the mosquito laser, mosquito napalm, mosquito casinos to get them hooked on gambling, bug zappers and moving to the North Pole.

But this new device, which he bought months ago, seems to be working. It’s clearing out his whole yard.

The idea is simple. It’s connected to a propane tank — why, I’m not quite sure, but they are either attracted by the gas, or come thinking there’s going to be a barbecue. (I am under the impression that only small quantities of propane are released, and that my back yard will not become a giant pool of gas waiting for an errant cigarette to level us with a blast.)
Some say mosquitoes come racing toward the machine because it has the same attracting effect as a large, pale man taking a backyard nap in the nude. It’s the equivalent of a human fast food chain.

The scent leads them close to a nozzle that when they get close enough sucks them up and traps them inside.

“Does it use some kind of pesticide to kill them?” I asked my neighbor.

“Oh, no,” he told me. “They just get trapped in there and dehydrate to death.”

“Dehydrate to death?” I said. “How cruel. What an awful, excruciating way to die. So uncivilized. How do I get one?”

The thought of hundreds of mosquitoes stuck in there sweating and gasping for water has me in a tizzy. I can see one now, loosening his tie and asking, “Harry, when they serving drinks around here?”

I’m absolutely giddy.

Oh, I’m not a cruel man. I’ll go out of my way to help a lizard, an earthworm, a spider or even a lowly moth.

But mosquitoes do not elevate the humanity in me.

So I bought a Mosquito Magnet 4000 Defender online and I’m now anxiously waiting to hear the dull rumble of the Postal Service truck pulling up to my house.

When I get it, I’m going to paint big shark jaws on the sides, call it the “House of Death,” and hang a flag above it that says, “Die, suckers, die!” or “For a good time, come on in.”

I’m hoping my troubles with the pests will be over. No more bites on the eyelids, or worse, my tongue. No more waking up the wife with a quick swat to the head when I see a mosquito land there. I did that to the dog once, and she just about ripped my nose clean off.

After the war will come peace in the land, and we shall rejoice and drink iced tea on the front porch.

Boy, I’ve never goofed one like this before. Riding down to Key West, expecting to check-in to a cottage in Old Town, and boom, we find we’re arriving a night early.

A night early! Oh mealy worms. Sometimes I have the common sense of an overcooked macaroni noodle.

The wife found out when she called to request late check-in.

“Um,” they told her, “you’re not scheduled to check-in until tomorrow.”

The heat of embarrassment took a tour through my body, ending in my toes. I thought my toenails might pop off. I looked for someone to blame, and maybe the dog, but I had to take this one squarely on the shoulders. I misread the paperwork — dates were never my strong point — and we were up the creak.

What a way to start a week-long vacation in the Keys.

But you know, a start like that means it can only get better. And it did. It all worked out. Thompsons may have chronic bad luck, and petroleum jelly for brains, but we’re survivors. It all worked out because in the Florida Keys there’s no living but good living.

I love it down there. And it’s not for any of the reasons most people have. Frankly, I don’t do anything that makes the Keys the Keys. Don’t boat, don’t fish, don’t drink until I’m inside out, don’t lobster hunt, don’t collect shells, don’t buy cheap crap, don’t visit tourist attractions, don’t snorkel, don’t scuba and don’t go anywhere that might bring me into close contact with marine life that views my hind quarters as a pork chop.

Instead, my wife and I do simple things. We take long strolls until the heat of summer has wilted us to puddles and melted our knees. We take in galleries and eat well. We admire architecture and plot changes to our house — “What about a windmill?”

We walk around with a list of every ice cream shop in town so we’re always prepared, and we admire yachts with mansions growing out of them, prompting us to wonder what we did wrong to be so poor.

And this trip I learned that life can be best enjoyed from atop a beat-up beach cruiser bicycle. We rented bikes and scooted around Key West without a care in the world, except for the fear of running over rabid chickens that might chase us.

I don’t usually like to rent bikes because most are brand new, bright colors and come affixed with big signs that read, “Dork tourist coming, be mindful and don’t kill.”

But the bike I found to rent had character. It was covered in rust and looked like it had just been dredged out of the bay. The tires were underflated, and the back wheel was so bent it flopped around like a spinning pancake.

It was the perfect Key West bike. I rode around town in proud style, swerving uncontrollably when I got going too fast because the front wheel wasn’t actually attached.

I love a vacation that when people ask, “What did you do?” you have to answer, “One word: tetanus.”

I kept the freezer stocked with Dove bars. I picked up coconuts and carried them home. I drank more bottled water than there is in Virginia. I invented cocktails. I didn’t answer the phone. I ate roasted almonds. I bought expensive chocolate.

What a time. What a wonderful, wonderful time.

Now we’re back, and real life is returning with a thud. The beach cruiser is gone, and so are the mid-day ice creams.

But a boy can still dream, can’t he? Dream of a day with a yacht that has an ice cream store and a big crane that lowers a rusting bike ashore every morning.

The back wheel will still flap like a pancake, and I will always arrive one day too early because who doesn’t need to get a jump on vacation?