Old people have the world by the tail.
And they’re swinging it around like a crazy, stoned teen-ager who knows he’s going to juvy and doesn’t care.
I’ve decided that old people can see and hear just fine. Their reflexes are better than the average 25-year-old and the only thing better than their short term memory is their race car driving skills. They’re faking it and getting away with it.
I can’t wait until I’m old now.
1. I can back up my big Cadillac from parking spots in busy commercial lots without looking behind me to see if anyone’s coming. I won’t need a rear view mirror at all. In fact, I’m going to have the rear and side view mirrors removed from my big old cushy pimpmobile. I’ll be free to just hit the gas and go. Driving will no longer require any neck strain.
2. I can pretend not to hear what I don’t want to hear, pretend to not understand what I don’t agree with, pretend not to see what I can’t stomach, and pretend I don’t understand why I can’t use 8 coupons at Bed Bath and Beyond for 6 items, until the frustrated cashier just takes $20 off my bill.
3. I can wear elastic-waisted pants without winning Dowdiest Female at my class reunion.
4. I plan to take what my kids have been dishing out to me since I turned 40, mixing it up a little bit and serving it right back to them. My kids claim that they tell me things and that I “must’ve forgotten.” You forget a couple things over the years, like to get them braces and a scoliosis check, and they never let you forget it. I know they’re lying when they tell me that they already told me “four times” that they need a note for school, that so-and-so needs a ride to practice, and that their wrist is still swollen and is surely broken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I would have remembered if they had actually told me the same thing four times. But that’s fine, because two can play at that game. When I’m old, I’m going to not only forget all that, but I’m going to “forget” the stuff I do remember hearing. They’ll be lucky to get birthday presents.
5. I can turn the TV up so loud that I drown out my husband’s music, the dog’s sickening digestive tract noises, the sound of my daughter asking if I’ll drive her to school early so she can stop at Starbucks, and the sound of my son asking for dinner. Again.
6. I can talk super loud on my cell phone without embarrassing myself and those with me. Recently, I was at Palm Beach Atlantic College picking up my daughter from her bassoon lesson and was talking to my husband on the phone as I walked into the building, waited for the elevator, got in the elevator and rode it up to the 4th floor. When the elevator door opened, I stood face to face with my daughter, who was shooting flames and sharp knives out of her eyes at me. “Everyone up here could hear your whole conversation from downstairs, all the way up the elevator!” she hissed.
“SORRY!” I’m going to shout. “I’M HARD OF HEARING. AND I’M OLD. SO SHOVE OFF!”
7. I’ll be free to use quaint, homespun words and phrases that make me look like a moron right now. Folksy things like “inkling” and “that’s just peachy” and “smidgen” and “thongs.” When I say “dog biscuit” my husband says, “You sound like you’re . . . like . . . like you’re from Hubbard or something.”
8. I can eat lunch at 10 in the morning, dinner at 2 p.m., and have breakfast for the next day before I go to bed at night. And if anyone says anything disparaging about that, I can just say, “WHAT????
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