Not that this will come as a surprise to any of you who’ve already experienced it. But I’m still new at being old, and I haven’t gotten used to it yet.
Yesterday I had to buy some cigarettes for my wife. I don’t smoke cigarettes and I’ve never been able to remember all the specifications involved–so I bring along an empty pack so I can hand it to the clerk and say, “Three of these.”
Well, what I got turned out to be the wrong kind. “Didn’t you check them first?” Well, no–the clerk just stuffed ’em into a bag and I didn’t take the time to open the bag and examine its contents.
Back I go to the freakin’ supermarket; and there I discover that they are out of the kind of cigarettes I asked for. That’s why they gave me the wrong kind.
The assumption is, Look at all that white in his beard! He’s so far gone, he’ll never notice what kind of cigarettes we sold him. Doesn’t matter what I put in the bag! He’ll never catch on–dopey old trout.
Oh–and this store also demands proof of legal age before they’ll sell you any tobacco products. It’s just a gratuitous insult. I mean, do I look like I might be under eighteen? But this we get from our Democrat governor who calls pot-smoking a towering civil rights issue but smoking menthol cigarettes, hey, there oughtta be a law against it…
I can play basketball and ride my bike no-handed: I deserve respect.
When I go out to buy dinner to bring home I often forget to look in the sack to make sure my order is correct, because if it isn’t there’s hell to pay when I get home 🙂 . What I have notices\d about being “old” at 71 is I am becoming invisible to young people.
Twenty-somethings, maybe. You’re never dumber than you are then.
I’m quite new to being old. I signed up for Medicare Part A just this morning, although I intend to stay in the workforce another 5 years (at least) and have excellent health benefits. Look at what happened to Rehoboham when he decided that old guys didn’t have any good advice to offer.
That was Rehoboam’s Green New Deal. Solomon’s son… Well, they do say that talent skips a generation.
🙂