Dear Santa,

What you’ve heard is true: I’ve been a good guy all year. Haven’t yelled at the kids or the cat excessively, and I’ve treated my mother-in-law reasonably well.

But you know what? I’m not interested in the usual gifts guys my age get: the spiffy electronic toys, the silk pajamas, the power tools or the Simon and Garfunkel CDs. And I certainly don’t want another necktie.

No Santa, aging athlete that I am (and far removed from any past glories) what I want, and desperately need, is a better-working body. So for Christmas, please bring me the following 10 (well 11, actually) presents. Hope I’m not asking for too much.

New knees. Twenty years ago, runners in the know said not to worry about my knees, afflicted since high school with torn cartilage. Told me sometime in the near future I’d be able to get refitted with miracle synthetic cartilage. I haven’t seen it on the market, yet, Santa. Can you help?

A flat stomach. Santa, I once had washboard abs. I still do my sit-ups and crunches, and my midsection gets flabbier. What kind of justice is that?

Legs that don’t ache following a pick-up game of basketball. Used to be I could shoot baskets all day with the boys without incurring anything more than a parched palate. Now my legs protest when I walk around the block. Worse yet, they turn to mush after a game of hoops.

More hair up top. The comb-over isn’t working, Santa. Not enough hair up there.

Less hair elsewhere. Why can’t all that fuzzy growth on my arms and shoulders sprout from the top of my head, instead?

An arm that doesn’t cry out in pain after tossing a football with the kid next door. Santa, I’ve always quarterbacked touch-football games. Fellow players called me the “man with the golden arm.” Now the wise-guy neighbor kid compares my fluttering passes to wounded ducks.

A decrease in the price of prescription drugs. Don’t know how much pull you have with the pharmaceutical giants, Santa, but even with a good health plan I still can’t afford all my meds.

A stopwatch that’s permanently slow, so I can appear to be a faster runner. Think I’ll ever be able to cover a mile is less than five minutes again, Santa?

The ability to stay awake (occasionally) past 10 p.m. True, I was never a night owl, but now I doze barely an hour past dinner.

Swim trunks that fit. I don’t mind telling you, Santa, that I’m embarrassed every time I jump into the city pool. My bathing suit is either too tight (with fat bulging in all the wrong places) or too baggy (which makes me look like a kid wearing his big brother’s hand-me-down shorts).

And one last thing, Santa: Please, please, please let me beat the 11-year-old girl down the block just once in the upcoming year at a sport of my choice. My ego’s a wreck!

Richard Fencsak is co-owner of Bikes and Beyond. His column appears the second and fourth Thursday of each month in The Daily Astorian.