Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

It all started happening about age 65. That’s when some things started falling off, other things stopped working or required chemical intervention, and yet other things needed replacing altogether. Or at least a squirt of CRC.

Like the knees, which ached after decades of pounding the roads as a jogger – or plodder. My doctor’s considered professional opinion was that my knees were “buggered”.

That bit of medical wisdom was born of six years’ university and cost me $60. But I should keep plodding and the “buggered” knees would tell me when to stop. Lovely.

The problem is I am just getting old. Yup, I have hit that sad threshold where there’s no chance of anything. I am getting uglier quicker and I’m coping badly with the hell of age-ism and able-ism. The sort of “can you still do that because you’re an old fart now” nonsense.

Like the work wife – always poking me with the age stick because she can, because she knows I prefer it to being ignored, and because there’s defence in truth. Fortunately I miss most of her cheap jibes because I am napping on my keyboard. Because I am old.

‘Yesterday’ 

She loves asking for something to be done “yesterday” and I’m not sure if it will be done in my lifetime.

I might remind her about two old guys shooting the breeze and one says: “What’s something you are too old to do? And the other replies: “Give a s**t”. Exactly Work Wife. Some of us are comfortable in decline.

Work Wife regularly threatens me with being consigned to an out-of-the-way secure retirement home if I don’t behave. Is that elder abuse? It’s probably because I am old that I have completely forgotten why I actually care for and respect this woman.

You also know you’re getting old when you go into the fridge on a steamy “climate change” day and there are six frosty IPA ales screaming “pick me, pick me”. But, instead, you choose a nice cup of Dilmah to slake the thirst. Heat to beat heat – you have to be old to figure that.

You know you are getting old when you have to sit on the stairs to do up your shoelaces. I now only wear loafers or slip-ons that don’t require you going into contortions to do them up. You know you are old when it takes three or four attempts, and as many expletives, to get underwear on. Right foot, wrong hole, two feet one hole…all that.

The Wahs 

You know you are old when you dread the thought of meeting someone nice who wants to go out on a Saturday night when the Wahs are playing. Or even if the Wahs aren’t playing. The privilege that comes with age and living alone entitles you to stay home and make coconut ice rather than go out and socialise. When people ask a 70-something-year-old if he gets lonely, he replies sometimes. But it beats the alternative.

He can even watch evening replays of Parliament on TV without offending anyone. And no one’s asking: “How many is that you’ve had?”

You know you are old when you have flashbulb memories – you know where you were when Neil Armstrong took “one giant step for mankind”, where you were for the Cuban missile crisis when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war, and that horrible, horrible evening we awaited word on flight 901. Most of the dear people in this romper room of a workplace weren’t born when those things went down.

Attitude 

You know you are old when you talk to yourself and you lose the argument. You know you are old when the Black Watch tartan bellbottom trousers with the wide white belt you were hoping might be chic gain one day, haven’t, and won’t. Looks like they will die with me.

You know you are old when you’re the only one in the office that still writes cursive. You know you are old when all the moppets in the office scold you for thumping the computer keyboard like an Underwood. ‘Are you trying to kill it?’ Don’t they know the best copy is always written with attitude. Bet Hunter S. Thompson didn’t tap daintily on his keyboard.

You know you are old when a 2-year-old has a major “tanty” at 7.30pm when told it’s time for bed, and that’s all you really want to do.

You know you are old when you introduce your son by his uncle’s name. Explain that if you can. Well, yes I can. I am old.

You know you are old when you are the only one eating with a knife and fork – whether fish ‘n chips, nachos, pies. Because fingers are for Philistines. And picking noses.

You know you are old when people blame you for the housing market and climate change. Don’t walk on my lawn, please! Now, about my next nap…