Reason number 4,602 why I love my wife:

I was watching a rerun of JAG, in which a Navy lawyer and former fighter pilot loads his sidearm and prepares to face an old enemy. His girlfriend confronts him and begs him to call the police instead of going alone; he refuses, and thunders off into the rainy night, his vintage Corvette tearing up the slick roads between him and destiny. The girlfriend isn't pleased.

"It's rough," I commented out loud, "being the girlfriend of a Man of Action."

"I know," said Beth.

When I was a kid I used to wonder how it was that adults, who had the purchase power to buy limitless amounts of candy, did not do just that. I remember wandering the aisles of toy stores, staring in awe at colored package after colored package, dependent on the generosity of my parent-or-legal-guardian.

Now I have a job. And you know what? Sometimes I buy toys, just because I can. I have an entire Space Shuttle playset complete with multiple spacemen action figures.

"They're dolls," my wife likes to tell me.

"They're action figures," I always insist. As everyone knows, a doll that comes complete with weaponry has earned the right to be called an action figure.

Signs You're Growing Up, Part One:

Growing older means accumulating a resume in your kitchen cupboard. Unloading the dishwasher today, I noticed I had official coffee mugs from every place I've worked since I left college. I even have two from my previous job, because Interim Technology changed its name, inexplicably, to "Spherion." "Spherion" may be a stupid name, but the glass mug is very attractive.

There's a certain sense of history and credibility conferred on my career by the existence of those mugs. I've used those mugs for morning after bleary morning of coffee on the job. I've used them to drink water for day after work day. I've placed them in the cupboard at the completion of each tour of duty, replacing them with the next employer's merchandise. These mugs say more about me than any piece of paper, no matter how finely grained, can ever express.

"Your credentials seem in order," I can hear the interviewer say. "Do you have references?"

"No," I'll reply, "but I have an insulated mug that verifies my drafting experience, and a nice beer stein that says I'm a 'people person.'"

Signs You're Growing Up, Part Two:

I can track my level of maturity by looking at my feet.

As a child, I wore sneakers. No other form of footwear could be considered; children wore sneakers, and that was that. During Junior High the first sneakers with Velcro closures appeared on the market, but were quickly branded verboten as the stuff in which Nerds were clad. I never wore expensive sneakers, but I wore sneakers, and that was that.

In college I became a boot person. Boots were all I craved -- the bigger, the better. I wore combat boots and engineer's boots. I wore cowboy boots, and even bought a pair of spurs for some bizarre reason. Did you know it's impossible to walk down a flight of stairs wearing spurs? That's why Westerns invariably feature a cowboy getting shot and tumbling down a flight of stairs. He hasn't been shot -- he's tripped over his spurs, and is pretending to be dead to spare his dignity.

Now, as an adult, I wear Old Man Shoes. Only Old Man Shoes are acceptable. This is not because I need them for work. I could wear boots under my pants and no one would know the difference. No, I wear Old Man Shoes because, for whatever reason, they are the only footwear that feels comfortable to me now.

I will come full circle, of course. One day I will return to sneakers. White, orthopedic sneakers of the kind worn by Senior Citizens bearing those metal, four-legged canes. When I return to sneakers, I will know the end has come. I will know I have one sneaker-shod foot in the grave.