Growing old is the pits

I don’t want to get old – despite the fact I’m in my early 60’s…..

I don’t want my only topic of conversation to be my illnesses. I don’t want to shop illogically in supermarkets. And I don’t want daytime television characters to loom life-like in my mind.

What is it with old people that they have to talk about their illnesses? And why do they have to indulge in one upmanship when they do it?

1st old person: “I’m not very well today. My gout is playing up.”

2nd old person: “You’re lucky. I can barely go to the toile becauset my piles are so painful.”

3rd old person: “You think that’s bad? I’ve had to empty my colostomy bag twice this morning.”

Yet many seem happy to have such inane chats day after day.

When people ask me how I am, even if I’m at death’s door, I croak feebly: “I’m fine”, for fear of people thinking I have been attacked by geriatric germs if I reply in any other way.

Try accompanying an old person to a supermarket, and logic goes out the window.
I recall taking my father to Coles and stopping at the preserves section because he wanted some apricot jam. I reached out, took a well-known brand and placed it in the trolley. He stared icily at me, replaced it on the shelf and took another jar.

“This is cheaper,” he grunted at me, as if I was utterly mad.

Yet a few aisles later, when he wanted a packet of paper hand towels, I naturally took the cheapest. He looked at me in despair, replaced it, and took a more expensive one.

“These are prettier,” he said gloatingly, as if he had just won the bloody lottery.

And so we continued with this lunacy for 45 minutes as we did shopping I could have done in 15 minutes.

Old people also get forgetful about the cost of supermarket shopping.

When my father had his driving license taken away due to his inability to drive safely anymore, I started doing the shopping for him. He would give me a shopping list and $50, and when I staggered home with his goodies, he’d demand the change.

As the years went by, the $50 became $40, then $30 and $20 or less – although the shopping list remained the same length. And he was still asking about “change”. Eventually he would give me the shopping list and no money. When I delivered his weekly groceries, he would mutter “thanks” – but at least he no longer asked for change.

Daytime television mesmerizes old people in a way that both fascinates and horrifies me because, to them, the characters become “real” people.

My daughter works in TV, and often gets to meet the rich and famous. Recently, she met and chatted with Ron Moss, who plays the role of a rather pompous bloke called Ridge in the long running soapie, ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ – a program one of her ancient aunties watches, come hell or high water.

When my daughter told her about meeting ‘Ridge’, believing the auntie would be dead impressed, the old lady was somewhat caustic about the whole thing.

When I enquired as to why this momentous occasion had not made her gasp in joy and wonder, my daughter replied: “Apparently she is not too keen on Ridge at the moment….he is being a bit of a bastard in ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’, so she is giving him the cold shoulder.”

Food is another area of concern.

It seems the older one gets, the less important ‘use by’ dates become. Apparently, as one gets increasingly geriatric, one becomes immune to out of date food and can safely eat stuff with ‘use by dates’ going back 2-3 or more years.

I remember in the mid 1950’s I was never allowed to visit one of our two local corner shops because its proprietor, according to my mother, kept pies and pasties – plus other food – in a new fangled gadget called a deep freeze.

“You never know if what you buy will be fresh,” she would say scornfully.

I grinned some years later when she became the first in our street to own a Tucker Box freezer and would extol its virtues to her friends. And I wasn’t surprised, 10 years after she died and while helping my father empty the deep freeze, apricots she had preserved.

“They still taste OK,” my father said hastily but defensively.

Mind you, there are sometimes funny points about chatting with old people.

I recall a number of years ago working as media advisor to Her Royal Higness the Queen when she visited the South Australian city of Whyalla and went to a rather swank retirement village and nursing home. As she wandered through its corridors, she stopped and spoke to some of the residents.

At one point, she smiled at a rather grumpy looking old lady doing some knitting, and while I couldn’t hear the conversation, it was clear the Queen’s questions were being answered with less than enthusiasm.

As Her Majesty continued walking, I moved past the old lady, who was saying to her companion: “God, that bloody woman was nosey. Anyone would have thought she was the bloody Queen of England!”

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Tags:

age, elderly, old and people