Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway;
the good fortune to run into the ones I do;
and the eyesight to tell the difference.*
*author unknown
seniors
More Seniors Texting
ATD – At The Doctors
BFF – Best Friend Fell
BTW – Bring The Wheelchair
FWIW – Forgot Where I Was
ROFLACGU – Rolling On Floor Laughing And Can’t Get Up
Senior Citizens Texting
Senior citizens have taken to texting with gusto. They even have their own vocabulary:
BFF: Best Friend Fainted
BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth
CBM: Covered By Medicaid
FWB: Friend With Beta-Blocker
LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out
GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low
You’re Old If…
You’re old if…
- Everything hurts and, what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work anyway.
- You get winded playing chess.
- Your children begin to look middle aged.
- You sit in a rocking chair and can’t get it going.
- Your knees buckle but your belt won’t.
- Dialing long distance wears you out.
- Your back goes out more than you do.
- You answer automatically when someone addresses you as “Old Timer.”
- You burn your midnight oil at 8pm.
- You sink your teeth into a steak and they stay there.
- Your pacemaker makes the garage door go up when you see a pretty girl walk by.
- You have too much room in the house and not enough in the medicine cabinet.
- The best part of your day is over when the alarm clock goes off.
The Write Way
It’s hard for anyone under the age of 40 to understand how things used to be. They never had to get up off the couch to change a channel on their tv; they never had to fight over the one phone in the house that was attached to the kitchen wall; they never knew how much a stamp cost or how big a deal it was when the price increased (usually by a cent or two) and they never had to carry around gigantic copies of their MRI films. Today, everything is conveniently stored on computers. Doctors can view your entire medical history with the click of a mouse.
They don’t even hand out illegible scripts anymore.
I’ve always liked writing*. I’ve written numerous music books and a series of YA stories. Even as a young child I remember writing absolutely everything down – my favorite foods, my favorite songs, my favorite outfits, my favorite movies… As a bored middle-schooler, I often created detailed polls for my classmates to vote on – and, yet, I still managed to graduate (ONCE, at the end of my senior year, not every few years as kids these days do – starting with Kindergarten).
Much like my Mom tells me how she likes the feel of a good book in her hands (I’m a proud 3rd-generation-Kindle-r myself), there’s just something about holding a freshly sharpened pencil (with a working, not chewed up, eraser) in your hands and knowing that there’s an infinite world of possibilities lying at the tip.
So whether you’re an academic, an artist or just a doodler, a simple pencil and a blank piece of paper can add hours of entertainment and great accomplishment to your life without the need of an electrical outlet!
*Hope you’ve enjoyed my first 100 hellomuddahhellofadduh blog posts…
Defensive Driving Training
In my community, I recently saw a sign posted that offered a class in defensive driving for seniors. My initial reaction was that it was a bit of an oxymoron. After all, more people today are living longer lives and driving vehicles long after they really should be. No offense to anyone whose faculties are still intact but there are some statistically accurate points that need to be addressed.
Reflexes slow down as a person ages. There’s no disgrace in that fact but that doesn’t mean that you can react with the same speed and accuracy you once did. Your eyesight is less sharp and that, added to slower reflexes, is more of a menace when faced with a sudden oncoming obstacle. Even though you’ve clocked an impressive amount of years (even successfully) behind the wheel does not guarantee you immunity from error – both in judgment and in action.
So, next time I see a senior driving over the speed limit, or over the center line, or over my shoulder as I’m walking, I will secretly hope they attended that driver’s training class but will, nonetheless, give them a very wide berth!
Me Before You
As a former city girl, I basically walk at one speed and one speed only… Fast. I don’t consciously do it and I certainly don’t do it to prove anything to anybody. It’s just my regular gait.
So if you’re walking with me, you’d better keep up. And if you’re near me when I’m walking, you’d better be prepared to get out of my way when I pass you. If your head is down because your eyes are focused on your phone instead of where you’re headed, you’ll hear my wrath when I tell you (in no uncertain terms), “heads up.”
If I’ve just spent the better part of the last hour grocery shopping with a bunch of senior citizens who have an unlimited amount of free time on their hands (kind of like Sunday drivers only with shopping carts), you may well experience a lot of, “excuse me’s,” and “watch your backs,” and “on your lefts.”
And when I finally get back home – I’ll be the one pushing around a heavy cart full of maybe twelve bags of groceries – and I exit the elevator and start down the hallway, be prepared to step aside as I shout, “me before you.”
hellomuddah hellofadduh 