Tag: human behaviour

I Love Getting Old — II

time-and-oldI took a little local flak for Tuesday’s (January 24, 2017) post, “I Love Getting Old.”  The general consensus was, “Hey, (descriptive derogatory noun deleted) gettin’ old isn’t all beer and skittles, ya know.”  This is true.  So, in the interests of fair play, here are a few things about getting old that aren’t so nice.

1 — You forget things — a lot of things.  The days of keeping phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, bank accounts and a grocery list in your head are over.  You’re lucky if you can remember why you just walked into the kitchen.  The thing I hate the most about memory loss is you can almost remember stuff — but nope — it ain’t there.  For example, sometimes when you see a familiar face you can’t quite remember how you know that person.  Or sometimes you can conjure the face in your mind but you haven’t got a clue what the name is — and that includes famous people like Albert Einstein or that fat Brit who sang at Diana’s funeral.

2 — Your body betrays you.  This is the worst.  All those little aches and pains that weren’t there yesterday — in places you didn’t even know you had.  But the real problem is you have no idea which ones are Get-Thee-To-A-Hospital-Immediately and which ones are Cowboy-Up-Ya-Wimp.  And that means you’re either going to spend the rest of your days reading out-dated National Geographic magazines at the doctor’s office or die naked in the shower because you didn’t.

3 — Mirrors are the enemy.  It’s not just changing rooms that hate you.  First thing in the morning looks like Night of the Living Dead, and last thing at night looks like you might not make it ’til morning.  Even shop windows on a cloudy day can scare the hell out of you.

4 — Cute.  This is a major problem.  Mother Nature provided us with natural defences against bratty kids and vicious little dogs.  Unfortunately, as you get older, everything under 3 feet tall just looks so damn cute that you spend a lot of time getting bitten on the ankles and putting up with yappy dogs.

5 — It turns out all the TV programs you loved as a kid actually suck.

6 — Modern music all sounds like the Klingon Wedding Song for bassoon, drums and base guitar.

But the very worst thing about getting old is:

7 — You’ve had the misfortune of living long enough to see the Red Sox win the World Series!

I Love Getting Old

time-and-oldI’ve said “I love getting old” so many times that people think I’m being ironic.  Folks, do I even look like a hipster?  Don’t get me wrong: being young was fun.  Wine, women and song: sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll — whatever you want to call it, being a young man in the 20th century was worth the price of puberty.  However, there are some seriously cool perks available when you’ve lasted long enough to get north of 60, ’cause if you do it right, old people are just pre-schoolers with porno and alcohol privileges.  Here’s what I mean:

1 — You get to complain.  It’s not only allowed: it’s expected.  It still doesn’t change anything, but damn it feels good!

2 — You get to wear comfortable clothes.  I don’t know why (and this goes double for women) but fashionable clothes are always uncomfortable.  They grab ya in the wrong place, hold things way too tightly and sneak into areas that really should remain private.  I don’t have any personal experience, but a push-up bra and stiletto heels have got to be the worst.

3 — You’re never lazy.  You can lie around all weekend in your (comfortable) sweat pants, eating pizza, drinking Pepsi, binge-watching Luther on Netflix — and nobody calls you on it!  In fact, you get loads of sympathy. “Poor old fella!  He’s got nothing to do.  Awww!”  Yeah, life’s a bitch.  Pass the pepperoni.”

4 — People do things for you.  They move out of the way, give you a seat on the bus, reach for the tall stuff, lift your heavy crap and set up your technology.  It’s great!  But use this power judiciously or young people will start avoiding you and, believe me, lonely and bitter is not a good way to go.

5 — You get a vocabulary.  Luckily, even though life remains cool, brilliant, far out, awesome and amazing, you get better ways to describe it.

6 — Cool is a temperature.  I have no idea how many Kardashians there are, who sings what song, where the Marvel Universe is at, what any of this year’s Must-See-TV programs are, or what what’s-her-name said about the evils of capitalism.  When you’re young, if Jennifer Lawrence gets a boil on her bum, it’s big news.  When you’re my age, you’ve seen enough boils and bums not to worry about it.

But the very best thing about getting old is:

7 — You finally understand the connection between elegant and sexy — and it’s got nothing to do with sex.

We’re All In This Together

There’s been a lot of yipping lately about how divided our society has become.  These days,  everyone is painfully aware of what this particular group thinks or that particular group does or how some other group will react or get pissed off or … on and on and on.  Bullshit!  I don’t care how people identify themselves or what they think makes them different from everybody else, because the bottom line is — they aren’t — and I can prove it.

together

Here’s a simple test.

If you’ve done any one of these 10 things (11 if you’re female) you’re living proof that, way down deep in the human psyche, we’re all the same — just a bunch of ordinary folk, trying to get by.

1 — You hear a recording of your voice and think, “Wow, that is so-o-o weird.  Do I really sound like that?”

2 — You see someone you kinda know but not very well, and you pretend you don’t recognize them so you don’t have to make conversation.

3 — When you’re alone and a popular old song comes on the radio, you mumble most of the words until the chorus comes along and then you sing really loud.

4 — At a party with varying degrees of background noise, you smile a lot and “ha-ha-ha” laugh because you can’t actually hear what the other person is saying.

5 — Somebody says, “That was 10 years ago” and you’re thinking the 1990s, not 2006.

6 — You silently pronounce Wednesday as Wed-Ness-Day and February as Feb-Brew-Airy when you write them.

7 — You spend $20.00 extra at Amazon, for something you don’t really want, just to avoid paying the $8.00 shipping charge.

8 — You remember a stupid thing you did —  like — 12 years ago and get embarrassed all over again.

9 — You get out of the shower, see yourself naked in the mirror and go Supermodel for a nanosecond.

10 — When James Bond says, “My name is Bond, James Bond.” — you just read that in his voice, didn’t you?

And finally, for women only:

11 — At some point in your life, you’ve laughed so hard you peed your pants.