Getting Old… It’s Going To Be Epic!
Living in South Florida means being around lots and lots of retirees. Thankfully, most of them don’t drive during rush hour. If they did, I’d be dead. Motorcycles and older drivers are a poor fit. Instead, there’s a loud bell at 10AM and the gates of all the local retirement communities open and a vast armada of Buicks slowly rolls out, at trolling speed. At 4PM, another bell rings and the Buicks return. As I am firmly middle-aged, my senior years are most definitely on the horizon. I can’t wait.
Being a senior citizen grants certain privileges. My young colleague pointed this out today. He spent the weekend with his parents who have recently moved to a retirement community. “Old people do weird shit” was his observation. This is exactly why I’m looking forward to being an codger. Why do old people do weird shit?
Because they can, dammit.
Here’s a partial list of things I intend to do when the excuse of old age allows me:
- Grab my crotch and give the finger to random neighbors
- Wave my cane around menacingly
- Criticize everyone and everything
- Refuse to clean up after my dog (my dog will be old and crotchety, too)
- Open stuff at the grocery store for a quick snack and put it back on the shelf
- Tell stories about me that didn’t actually happen
- Pants up to my navel
- Socks and sandals
- Tell wildly inappropriate jokes (racist and sexist, both)
- Loud flatulence in public
- Mutter, mutter, mutter…
- Buick, slowly, no lane discipline
- Quote Rush Limbaugh
- Pay in coins when there are at least six people in line behind me
- Slow jaywalking as a hobby
- “Damned kids these days!”
- Old man smell (does that come in a bottle? I sure hope so!)
- Attend town council meetings, rail about taxes and refuse to shut up
- Block pedestrians on sidewalks with a slow and unsteady gait
- Loudly demand senior discounts at convenience stores
- Hearing aid buzz (“What? WHAT?! Speak up, dammit!”)
- F-bomb becomes F-machine gun
- Vote often and selfishly (“We don’t need no fucking bond issue for those fucking crappy schools, anyway!”)
- Pretend to be confused by technology and obnoxiously pester younger people to help
- Incredibly graphic descriptions of disgusting health problems
- Scourge of the local senior center
- Dentures, hand puppet, hilarity
Y’all get the idea, I’m sure. Feel free to add more.
The Private Man 
You just reminded me of all the reasons why I hate old people. No offence.
Apart from the dentures hand puppet. That shit is cash.
Pooping becomes more important than sex.
Talking in public and in detail about bowel movements.
…wait, I do that already. Damn.
Now that’s just cruel. One thing you will find out soon enough PM: living old beats the alternative. Especially when lots of funny shit on the Net to read.
Yell at the kids on your lawn.
And wave my cane menacingly at the same time. Good times ahead!
Damnit, beat me to it.
Naa, Naa PM you can’t catch me when I run on your lawn!
Two words: Land mines
Write a check to pay at the checkout counter and turn the shortest line into the slowest. You know, what’s today’s date, then longhand for store name, then amount in numbers, then spelled out in words, then find your drivers license, then remember your phone number, then ‘groceries’ on memo line, then sign… oh crap, you got the amount wrong…
You forgot the best one-
You get a free pass to be the biggest perv ever and the girls even swoon when you ogle and perv out.
Say “Phwoar, look at the bazookas on that one!”
Don’t forget to pretend you can’t hear anybody.
What? WHAT?! For fuck’s sake, speak up!
Hey, quit yelling, you fucker!
I’ve had old folks as patients who are on 17 different medications and don’t know what any of them do.
This is an actual interaction I had with an 80-something year old dude, recounted to the best of my memory:
,”Sir, do you have any medical problems?”
“Huh? Oh…ah…no. No I don’t.”
“Well, let’s go through these pill bottles – this is HCTZ. It’s for high blood pressure. Do you have high blood pressure?”
“No, dumbass. I used to, and then they gave me those pills. Now I don’t.”
I do some medical bullshit, for awhile, and then ask:
“Have you ever had surgery? You know, appendix or tonsils or anything?”
“No, I never go to the doctor.”
More medical bullshit. I start getting concerned (read:freaking the fuck out) when listening to his lungs – there are no breath sounds on his right side. He’s only moving air on the left. This is Badness. We get his shirt off, and lo and behold – a bunch of surgical scars.
“Sir, these look like surgical scars. Are you sure you’ve never had surgery?”
“Hmmph. Well, maybe a few, I guess.”
“Have you ever had any operations on your lungs?”
“Huh? Mmmnphm. Now that you mention it, they took my lungs out a few years back.”
“I see. What was the issue with your lung, Sir?”
“Oh, who the Hell knows. You sure ask a lotta goddamn questions. I need some goddamned peace and quiet. Pipe down, son.”
You’re not doing it right unless you’ve gotten into a fistfight with another elderly gent over who’s the last one in line for the early bird special.
Why hasn’t anyone released a videogame of that?
Call it “Old-Time(r) Beatdown”
It’s cane against cane, frame against frame.
When these dentures are bared, you know someone will be reaching for the Sudocrem.
So get ready to see age and treachery triumph over youth and inexperience! 🙂
P Ray I have actually witnessed it a couple of times having grown up in South Florida. Funny and sad at the same time.
The video game is a great idea too, Picture it now: Grand Theft Auto: Boca Raton. Sol and Murry go on a crime spree in their “99 Sedan de Ville armed with only canes and flatulence.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2162172/Pensioners-war-Woman-82-hits-neighbour-head-wooden-truncheon-long-running-feud.html
Round 1: Fight!
But all that is nothing compared to knocking up a young chick 😀 Hey, it’s science:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18392873
That’s a great rebuttal to any woman who says “Men interested in younger women are disgusting”
Draw up to full height and say “I don’t know what twisted anti-life ideology you come from, but making sure our children live longer is the best gift a parent can give a child. Us men, want to do right by them. Can’t you ever think of the children, instead of yourself, for once?”
You left out one of my favorites: Breaking your car blinker so it stays on from the moment you leave the driveway until you turn it off when you stop the car. It’s not like you’ll hear it blinking anyway.
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My 14 year old son has stated more than once that for him, getting old is something to look forward to – primarily for the reasons you mentioned above (the #1 – they just don’t care). Gotta love the perspective.