WE ARE ELDERLY, HEAR US WHEEZE!

By Jim Higgins

Medium
April 30, 2020

So now we are going to corral the elderly at home and keep us away from public places? Apparently, we are the human hook and loop Velcro attracting Corvid-19 microbes.

I never warmed to the term “elderly.” It is too close to feeble and not far from infirm. It’s a euphemism for both.

Elderly is someone who places a box of Kleenex in every room.

Feeble is someone who can’t lift a tissue out of the box.

Infirm is someone who lives in a box.

I wear a button I bought at a production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. It reads: “I’m Not Dead Yet!” I wear it proudly as I maneuver the aisles with younger masked shoppers. No one will mistake me for elderly. Crazy, maybe.

When my wife was 62, a doctor’s letter releasing her to take a Zumba class identified her as “an elderly 62-year old.” She changed doctors. But she still Zumbas.

If 60 is the new 50 and 70 is the new 60 than elderly must be the new “old.”

Old has always been a familiar part of aging, more relative than offensive.

“How old are you?”

“I’m this many years old,” said my 3-year old self raising three fingers.

“She is only 20-years old.”

“ My dad is almost 80-years old.”

“My car is nearly 14-years old”

“This shirt is three weeks old”

I prefer old to elderly like I prefer Creamy to Crunchy, Improved to New, and Previously Owned to Used.

But now that we seasoned citizens are on the Corona hit list, we should expect some changes.

First, senior discounts will go the way of Friends Fly Free. Fewer patrons equal fewer coupons. Besides, the virus has already discounted us.

Second, early birds will become as extinct as dodo birds because no one will want to eat six feet away from a human petri dish.

Third, if grocery stores won’t allow us in then we will have to revert to our teen years of enlisting a passerby to purchase contraband:

“Pssst, hey kid. Here’s a 20. Go inside and buy me a box of Fiber One, some Metamucil and a package of Depends. Keep the change.”

To be fair, some stores are allowing us to shop early since most of us have already been up half the night peeing. We just need to be out of the store before the hoarders arrive.

Still, there are a few advantages that age affords us. Younger people hold doors for us, wealth management firms will always buy us lunch and Nigerian princes will offer to share their wealth. Yes, someday my prince will come through. But first I need to send money to a person in another town who says my grandson is in trouble that only a gift card will resolve.

I have been called many things in my 74 years but stupid is not one of them.

I just can’t remember them.