So I will settle with simply, and honestly, declaring my age (despite wondering where the hell the years between 1977 and now went) and accepting the fact that under rumoured legislative discussions I shall be of retirement age in 10 short years.
And they will seem like short years after having cracked on this far in life.
But, of course, nothing has been settled yet about this whole retire at 67 thing.
Like small people in the company of the England rugby team at a bar in Queenstown, it is only being thrown around at this stage.
The "official" call it quits age used to be 60, I'm sure.
And then it went up to 65.
Now there's talk of adding two years ... because it'll save a fortune in superannuation payments.
But the whole retirement deal is slightly crazy.
Surely, when you feel it's time to mark the old cards for the last time, and flog the last ballpoint pen, that should be the time to leave.
If you can do a job, and do it well, and no one gets hurt or offended, then you should be allowed to stay on and do it.
The day you cause an explosion or ruin a crucial business meeting because there are no ballpoint pens left to sign off the deal ... then that is the signal to leave.
I have met too many good people who have been left angry, frustrated and marooned because their 65th birthday had turned up on the doorstep ... despite the fact that in their hearts and minds they felt like a 35-year-old ... albeit one with dicky joints and an inability to stay up past 9pm.
And they wanted to keep working.
I have often thought about early retirement.
You know ... picking up a windfall from somewhere and reclining back with a glass in one hand and a note in the other which reads "now I can write that book I always wanted to write".
But I know, I just know ... it wouldn't work.
Oh it would work ... for five or six weeks ... and then I'd start getting fidgety.
Alarm clocks are not designed and built to simply be ornaments.
I would love to unload the "daily grind" or the "nine-to-five" or the "another day another dollar" syndrome, but at the end of the day (be it a working or idle day) I would simply have to do something.
Which reminds me of a dreadful letter I read four or five years ago ... after the Rolling Stones announced they were going out on the road yet again (if they could get Ronnie out of the detox clinic) for a series of concerts.
Some odious creature remarked "what are they doing still playing concerts ... they're all old enough to have retired years ago".
Age is not the point.
Superannuitants or otherwise, the members of the Rolling Stones, all well into their sixties, had every right to get back out on the road and on to the stage again ... because that is what they have been doing since they were fluff-faced teenagers.
It's their job.
They are professional musicians.
Long may they play.
Of course they don't need the money, but they need to work ... because they always have, and the ages of 60 or 65 or 67 mean nothing when you know you can still put in a day's toil and enjoy it.
I kid myself that I could easily curl up and do nothing in the sun if six numbers came my way.
But it wouldn't happen.
For when I do take a break from this grinding toil, I only manage to do that for three days ... then I start digging holes or whatever.
In three years, I shall be 60 (which means I will have overtaken my IQ).
Then five years later, I will be 65 (if I can manage to control my addiction to fast motorcycles) and, two years after that, I will be 67 and probably told to shuffle on.
So I shall and will call an end to the weekly wage ... and then I'll join a rock and roll band and tour until I die!
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
