If I Ever Get Like That

©1996 Dave Clegg

I was ten years old when my big brother

Came home with his first girl.

Acting stranger than a little green man

From an extra-terrestrial world.

With his tongue hangin' out of a big dumb grin

In the middle of his wobblin' head,

And as he mumbled like some old fool

I turned to my buddy and said,

If I ever get like that,

Take a ball peen hammer,

A baseball bat,

Or a two-by-four

And lay me flat.

I'll be ready for the Big Dirt Nap

If I ever get like that.

At seventeen I took my own

True love to the shopping mall.

And there, I witnessed for myself

The strangest sight of all.

A full-grown man just a-carryin' on

About the color of a baby bed!

And as he mumbled like some old fool

I turned to my girl and said,

If I ever get like that,

Take a ball peen hammer,

A baseball bat,

Or a two-by-four

And lay me flat.

I'll be ready for the Big Dirt Nap

If I ever get like that.

At twenty-five, we had a son

And I fought back the tears.

I looked out in the hall and saw

A man on up in years.

Leaning on his walker

With that white fuzz on his head,

And as he mumbled like some old fool

I turned to the baby and said,

If I ever get like that,

Take a ball peen hammer,

A baseball bat,

Or a two-by-four

And lay me flat.

I'll be ready for the Big Dirt Nap

If I ever get like that.

At eighty-nine they put me

In a room at Sunset Towers.

And there, I finished out my life

And in my final hours,

My life flashed before me

And as they pronounced me dead,

I saw myself at ten years old

When I turned to my buddy and said,

If I ever get like that,

Take a ball peen hammer,

A baseball bat,

Or a two-by-four

And lay me flat.

I'll be ready for the Big Dirt Nap

If I ever get like that.