Sorry, Scarlett, I do give a damn

R.A. Dickey, the Mets' brainy knuckleballer, was yanked in the ninth inning after a walk and a double ended his bid for a shutout against the Arizona Diamondbacks earlier this season. Before leaving the mound at Citi Field, Dickey, who majored in English lit and has a book on the best-seller list, lost academic detachment for a moment and flung the rosin bag to his feet with what a man of words might call exceeding vigor.

"It leaves a sour taste in my mouth simply because I knew I have an expectation of myself in that situation, and that is not it," Dickey said later, according to published reports, explaining a burst of emotion that was modest by water-cooler-kicking big league standards but, still, quite something for a lit major.

Watching from the upper deck that day, I thought, well, yes, this is how we behave when high hopes lose altitude. Dickey had pitched admirably for eight innings -- and the Mets were to emerge victorious -- but faltered in the final frame. Here, again, was life announcing the obvious: Be careful, it is never too late to mess things up.

Those of us in the AARP demographic are sure to appreciate the broader aspects of the idea -- i.e., that a lifetime free of felony convictions and an impeccable record of helping the neighbor shovel the walk and chase raccoons off the roof will be forgotten in a split second should your wife find a letter to Scarlett Johansson marked "personal" in the pile of outgoing mail or if you are discovered at college watering holes doing Jell-O shots.

The great short story writer Grace Paley once published a collection called "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute," a title that now seems fraught with cautionary sentiment no less urgent than signs advising "Violators Will be Towed" or "Attack Dog on Duty."

Also portentous are movies that feature oddball seniors whose behavior may strike Hollywood as adorable but, in real life, would prompt an intervention. In "Little Miss Sunshine," for example, Alan Arkin plays Grandpa Edwin, a senior citizen heroin junkie who teaches his 7-year-old granddaughter a burlesque routine in advance of a little girls' beauty pageant. LOL, as the texting crowd says -- but don't try it unless you're itching for a visit from the morals squad.

The reasons for mature people to act accordingly are manifold. Into evidence we place the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 63, former head of the International Monetary Fund and presumptive candidate for president of France, undone by reports of outrageous excess.

DSK, as he now is known -- the three-letter, Osama bin Laden (OBL) treatment in the daily press is a sure sign things have taken a nasty turn -- got into career-ending trouble when a New York hotel housekeeper accused him of sexual assault and a French novelist said he abused her, as well. (Strauss-Kahn denies all.) Numerous stories of an insatiable lifestyle followed and, before you know it, DSK was DOA as a global power broker.

Strauss-Kahn's was a particularly sordid episode, but the lesson is clear: Don't do anything that makes your children claim they were orphaned at birth.

Stupid sexual stuff goes without saying, but also to be avoided is oddball political activity -- say, joining a tax revolt group and deploying for guerrilla training in Montana. Unadvisable, too, is affiliation with any outfit that insists the world will end in October and then, when the world doesn't, says, whoops, sorry, the Rapture has been rescheduled for next year. Dishonesty has a downside too. Please, no investment rackets. Look at Bernie Madoff.

Some forms of geezer high jinks are perfectly acceptable and apt to enhance, not destroy, one's image. Ronald Reagan pumped iron while president and the elder Bush, George H. W., has been known to jump out of airplanes strapped to a parachutist. I knew a fellow who worked as a moving man well into his 70s and, late in life, my mother once went to Thailand for a weekend because a friend scored discount fares from Pan Am. (Hedging her bets, Mom ate only hamburgers at the hotel in Bangkok.)

YouTube is loaded with videos of silly senior tricks -- do not try dancing on a table before checking the legs (yours and those of the table) -- and everyone has an Uncle Al who, having located his banjo in the attic after all these years, plays "Shine On, Harvest Moon," with encores, at every family birthday. You might even get away with a full body tattoo of the sort I spotted on an older lady at the beach (she was feeding her dog ice cream with a plastic spoon) and maybe a vanity license plate that declares "SWNGN SR," though that seems like pushing your luck.

It's the seriously out-of-whack behavior -- the kind prompting loved ones to gasp, "He did what?" -- that invites late-in-life disaster. Get the nose stud. Forget the Ponzi scheme. Scarlett Johansson? Note to self: Uh-uh.