Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Old age is a bastard

Quite aside from having the dubious delights of senile dementia, Alzheimers disease, hairy ears & noses, liver spots & just plain old general decrepitude, there are other dubious delights to be had from being over 50. One is not being invited to parties because, "Its only going to be young ones there." That one is fair enough I guess. Mostly they play crap music way too loud, & its not real music anyway & they have far too much bass wound up. Now I'm not against loud music, as my neighbours will testify. BUT its gotta be GOOD music, ie the stuff I like. I also like to hear it through my much loved pair of 3 cubic foot Fisher studio speakers in their wooden cabinets, not these new fangled plastic things the size of a matchbox that would be too loud in the Albert hall.

Another side effect of getting older is taking all night to do what we used to do all night, but I dont really have a problem with that. I think its actually much more fun.

Another jolt was when I went to the Doctors today. When he had finished telling me that he really didnt know what was ailing me & blithely handed me various strange looking containers to fill with various bodily excretions, I went into the office to pay. I expected the usual $40.00 fee, but got a surprise when the receptionist told me , "Oh No, its only $22.00 for you now." Apparently , there is a new subsidy out aimed at encouraging us old fuddy duddys to go to the doctor more often so that we will stay the hell out of hospitals & leave it for the younger ones who have a far longer & much more productive life to lead. I dont mind that. It saves me storing up symptoms & going to my doctor with a list, like I usually do. The kicker is, that the ailment I went to him with is something that affects roughly one in ten people OVER 40. AND its something that I have never heard of before, so havent had to lie awake worrying about until now. The joys of old age. There was something else I was going to tell you, but I've forgotten what it was.. Never mind. So , I'll just sit here with my prune juice & rusks & dream about the good old days.. havent got the phone number for the Zimmer factory have you ?

3 comments:

Morticia said...

Every silver lining had a cloud encasing it. $22 is good. Being older is good. Being sick is not good. But at least you're sick when you are older and therefore cheaper if that makes any sense. :-)

Flattie said...

I hope you're not insinuating that I'm a cheap old bastard here..

Anonymous said...

The good news is that I've never HEARD of the Zimmer factory until this very minute. The BAD news is that I can sympathize with you on pretty much every issue here.

When they told me that it's hell getting old, I just laughed and thought, "Hell, I'm not EVER getting old!" And you know what? I was at least 50% right! I try to remind myself on a daily basis that growing OLD is mandatory, but growing UP is optional.

By the way, I can't envision you EVER growing UP, no matter WHAT the doctor tells you! ;-)

Kathy