Young people are always shooting off their mouths about how useless we old folks are. They’re big on talk but when you really think about it, we seniors can do anything those young folks can do and a Hell of a lot more.
For your consideration, a brief list of things that old people can do a far sight better than any wet-behind-the-ears young person.
Serve in the U.S. Senate
When was the last time you saw a damned teenager serving in the U.S. Senate? I’ll tell you when – never! And that’s because everyone with a lick of sense knows that if you want to run a decent society you need to populate your governing bodies with nothing but really old white men.
Sit up Straight
Even with a stoop, a hunch and a partial hump I have 10 times the posture of your averaged damned teenager and know how to position myself in a chair without looking like a half-stuffed scarecrow on a three day drunk.
Lawn Bowl
Forget rugby, football, boxing and other panty-waisted foppery – lawn bowling is a game that requires top physical conditioning, mental toughness and real grit. And that’s why you’ll never see damned young people in shorts, white socks and sandals at the local lawn bowling club – they just don’t roll that way.
Bake
My old mom could take two wormy apples, some turned lard, a handful of spice, a ball of knotted twine and an old newspaper and turn it into the most delicious homemade pie you’ve ever tasted. Young people? If it involves anything more complicated then combining cake mix with cannabis and then stuffing it in an Easy Bake oven, they’d burn the house down.
Write a letter of Complaint
Young people today lack the vocabulary, backbone and brains to write anything more than an inarticulate, half-assed flaming outburst in a moronic chat room. A decent letter of complaint is a powerful tool and one that requires mental agility, discipline and liberal use of phrases like “road apples” “balderdash” “hooey” and “gumption.”
Mental Math
Have you ever seen a young person try to do mental math? They appear to be either in the throes of painful constipation or on the verge of stroke. If you’re ever confronted by a menacing youth, just ask him to sum 8 + 17 x 2 – 10 ÷ 2. If his head doesn’t explode immediately, he’ll at least be rendered temporarily immobile giving you ample time to smack him with your cane.
Be Pope
When was the last time you saw a teenaged Pope? I’ll tell you when – in 1032, that’s when. And that’s because everyone with a lick of sense knows that if you want to run a decent society you need to populate your religious bodies with nothing but really old white men.
Select Appropriate Pets
Iguanas, ferrets, snakes and rats aren’t pets – they’re vermin. In my day people didn’t invite them into our homes and make them a part of the god damned family – we clubbed them with sticks, pelted them with rocks and used them as ingredients in our delicious homemade pies.
I trust I’ve made my point, damn it.
It’s no wonder that young people today are damned out of control - their lives make no sense and contain no structure. In my day, a man’s life was pretty much charted out for him the moment he popped out of the womb.
A simple path and one well trodden by your father and his father before him.
It seems to me, however, that these damned young people today are scattered in 9 directions at once and doing half of the things a man is meant to do in ass backwards order. If they bother to do them all.
I don’t think I need say more.
Charts don’t lie and neither do old people. You young people are in a Hell of a mess.
Few things chap my ass more than these damned multi-national drug companies and their insistence on churning out all manner of erection-inducing pharmaceuticals.
What the Hell has our country come to when the focus of our medical research has shifted from the treatment of respectable illnesses like whooping cough, rheumatism and brain fever to how to provide some feckless asshat with an erection that will last up to, but no longer than, 4 hours?
(And who decided that 4 hours was the point at which an erection becomes dangerous anyway? I’d like to know what kind of highly perverted, federally-funded clinical trials went into the discovery of that particular insight.)
I haven’t read the New York Times in a while but I was under the impression that there were still one or two illnesses floating around out there that needed some tending to. Have we really solved all of the ailments of the world and just moved on to striking items off some medical researcher’s degenerate “wish list”?
My biggest beef, however, is that they target these store-bought erections at us seniors. Just what in the Hell did we do to deserve this attack on our dignity?
I don’t need some smarmy thirty year old ad executive telling me that my life is incomplete just because I’m not cruising discotheques in pair of leather slacks with a wallet full of lubricated condoms. And let me tell you, if I ever do find myself in need of an erection, I’ll get one the old fashioned way and peruse a copy of the National Geographic thank you very much.
These drug companies seem to be determined to turn bingo halls across America into supercharged dens of sexual iniquity – they’re creating a seniors Sodom and geriatric Gomorrah for Christ’s sake. And they aren’t going to be happy until every old codger in the land is popping perversion pills and doing the god damned hoochie-coochie morning, noon and night. It’s immoral, indecent and damned insulting too.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to erections in principle – I just don’t want them rammed them down my throat every time I turn on the television.
In my view, rather than finding means to put lead in an old man’s pencil, drug companies should commit themselves to developing a pill that would stiffen people’s backbone and provide 4 hours of moral fortitude and god damned common sense.
In all honesty, it would make for an uplifting change.
The problem with young people today is that they don’t have any table manners.
When I was a lad, the evening meal was a trial by pot roast. There were rules to eating and we were terrified of breaching them. We ate tentatively and fearfully, ever mindful of our peas and social cues.
But these young people today? They’re nothing but uncouth, vulgar, ham-fisted Neanderthals. They storm the dinner table like a barbarian horde descending on an unattended virgin. They sit with their elbows on the table, shirts un-tucked and hands unwashed – yelling at one another while they burp, slurp and fart their way through their evening repast.
And they sure as Hell don’t bother with cutlery. Knives are reserved for mugging seniors, forks are just for picking teeth and the only use they have for a spoon is in boiling up their god damned heroin.
They use their grubby hands to stuff food in their mouths and then leave them hanging open while they slop the contents around for all to see. It’s like watching the rinse cycle of a front loading washing machine.
It’s damned sickening. I’ve been to zoos where the rending of flesh was more civilized for Christ’s sake.
In my day, young people sat with eyes downcast, napkins spread across our laps and elbows tucked to our sides. If I had ever reached my arm across the table my old dad would have cut it off with a steak knife and used the stump to ladle our soup. Etiquette demanded it, for Christ’s sake.
These damned young today people eat exactly the same way they live there lives – sloppily, haphazardly and with all the grace of a circus carnie on a 3-day drunk. I’m telling you, if this disgraceful trend keeps up it won’t be long before we’re nothing but a nation of farm animals gorging ourselves from a communal trough and then rolling around in our own filth afterward.
And that’s a future I just can’t stomach.
They don’t have any table manners. That’s the problem with young people today.
No senior citizen with a lick of sense should leave the writing of their obituary to their damned relatives. When the time comes, your family will be far too consumed with grief and preoccupied with the contents of your will to focus on writing you the fitting tribute you deserve.
Leave it to chance and you’ll end up with some off-the-rack, saccharine-coated, blandly benign recap of your life. Face facts, for most folks this will be your first mention in the local newspapers. Now is your time to shine, damn it.
I say, write it yourself. It’s not difficult – an obituary follows a pretty simple formula:
- A Nice Photo
- The Announcement
- Family Crap
- Your Life in 150 Words or Less
- Service Details
- A Fitting Summation
This edition of “Obituary Writing 101” will focus on the first three items on that list:
A Nice Photo
I strongly recommend including a photo. It draws attention to your death and helps set you apart from the other stiffs littering the obituary pages. But be forewarned, making the proper selection can be challenging indeed.
If you include a “young” photo in your obituary, it makes it seem like you were embarrassed of your life after the age of 40 and ashamed of your golden years. If you include an “old” photo, it looks like you spent your whole time on earth with blotchy skin, thinning hair, an unflattering scowl and thick spectacles. It’s a conundrum.
That’s why I suggest you include a black and white photo of your corpse. It’s plucky, original and pretty much tells it as it is. And, if nothing else, it’s a damned sure to draw a crowd.
The Announcement
This section usually contains your name, age, the date of your death and the cause of your death. Sure, it may seem like pretty standard fare but you still want to choose your words carefully. I don’t want my obit to say something moronic like I died “peacefully,” “quietly” or “suddenly.” I want it to say that I died after a protracted battle against the stupidity of others.
I also intend to augment my name slightly to further set me apart from the herd. My obituary will identify me as Colonel Donald Mills. (I was never really a Colonel but neither was Harland Sanders and that didn’t stop him from). I would have selected General Mills but that would just cause confusion.
I further recommend against including a cause of death. I’m in my 80’s for Christ sake and I think we can all safely assume I died from old age and not sexual misadventure or a skydiving accident. However, a little mystery is a good thing and if people want to speculate – who am I to object.
Mix it up, make it punchy and don’t worry about sticking to the facts. You’re dead – no one is going to call you on it.
Family Crap
This is where you name everyone you’re survived by and predeceased by. Personally, I don’t see the value of this section at all. It’s boring as Hell (the damn things read like those tiresome “begat” sections of the Bible) and the only people who peruse it are the ones checking to see if they were mentioned.
For me, I won’t be including a list of people I am “survived by.” Most of the relatives I liked are already dead and the rest should damn well know who they are. Plus, at 30 cents a word it’s a costly added expense.
Beyond a mention of my beloved Aggie, I won’t be including the names of any folks I am predeceased by either. By definition – they’re dead. And last time I checked, the dead don’t read newspapers. At least, not the obituaries.
In the next edition of Obituary Writing 101 – summarizing your life in 150 words or less, drafting the service details and writing a fitting summation.
For me, the last line in my obituary will remind any damned young person planning to attend the celebration of my life that there will be a strict “No shoes, No shirt, No memorial service” policy in effect.
