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My wife and I eat at a restaurant “out south” whose name I won’t mention for fear of a lawsuit, or worse, that I’ll immediately turn 107 years old.

That’s the average age of the customers who enjoy the comfort food, subdued lighting, quiet atmosphere and the fact that you can keel over during dinner and not ruffle any feathers.

On average, I suspect that two or three people expire there every week, falling head-first into

their squash-and-rice casserole.

In fact, when this landmark hires bus boys, it asks that applicants “be able to deal discretely

with death by natural causes — and lift 97 pounds.”

The food is actually quite good — my favorites are the fried chicken, lightly breaded zucchini and cinnamon rolls —

and it’s probably why we’ve eaten there for 20 years.

We always say something tacky about “going to eat with the old people,” but really, the joke’s on us.

The place sucks you in, becomes a habit and before you know it, boom, it’s you who’s 107 years old, keeling over and being carried off by a bus boy.

Before we move on to why this geriatric haven would be selling energy drinks at the cash register, there’s something to settle.

Have you ever wondered why people say “out south” rather than “down south” when they head for Johnson County?

It would make sense to say “I’m going up north” to the airport. Who

would say “I’m going out north?”

“Out” is a directionally neutral term that can refer to anything (for example, “outside,” “out of town,” “outer space”). But not “up” and “down,” which parallel what you see, south-wise and north-wise, on a map.

Even “out West” makes more sense because it’s neither up nor down, but left. (Admittedly, you would also get funny looks if you said “we’re taking the RV left west this summer.”)

Being concerned with issues of this magnitude, you can see why marketing energy drinks to people with bad hearts, poor memories and bone-density issues would baffle me.

It might even qualify for Sports Illustrated’s “Signs that the Apocalypse is Upon Us Now” if eating creamed corn were an Olympic sport.

You could make the case that people of advanced age have a genuine need for energy, even the artificial kind.

But at what point do we admit that, energy-wise, the well’s gone dry, that the pedal’s already been to the metal?

Could this marketing strategy mean that the energy-drink craze has, thankfully, come full circle?

You have to figure that senior citizens are the last untapped market for these drinks.

If teenagers and 20-somethings think they need to drink something to feel energetic, we’re already in serious trouble. And selling these drinks at a restaurant populated by oldsters makes about as much sense as hawking long-term-care insurance to high school sophomores.

I don’t know about you, but I think a revved up 85-year-old would not only be unseemly, but downright dangerous. Walkers just aren’t designed to go that fast. And, glucosamine and chondroitin — even triple strength —only do so much.

And who’d want to be around when some oldster pops a Viagra, chugs two cans of Red Bull and goes on the prowl for one bodacious hottie?

Certainly not any hottie with standards. Certainly not anyone with eyesight.

From my point of view, energy drinks are just more proof that our culture’s gone completely wacko. We want things we can’t have, want more of what we already have and figure anything’s possible if you only try hard enough.

And have a dream.

I suppose that’s what makes these drinks so popular. Until they wear off, you think you can run faster than reality.

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