As I sit slumped in my green wingback chair by the bay window at the club, I throw my still agile mind back to glorious times. I was young and unafraid while sturdy of body in the prime of life. Everything appeared possible and within reach. Now if I am honest, it is abundantly clear that I have missed the brass ring and really just take up much needed room. I am in the way and must get a move on to elsewhere. The applause is over and your Major should leave the stage.
I believe that Dante knew what he was talking about when he wrote these words in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Not perhaps a happy thought but insightful when I think of my formative years: A world of great-aunts, large matrons, frightful teachers and disappointed parents climaxing in a pile of uncertainty mixed with a smidgen of misgiving. In other words a shambolic mess.
I won’t mince words here: I am against tattoos. I suppose it is acceptable for aging sailors and bikers but that is it. A new disturbing trend flutters forward concerning middle-aged women, normally a sensible demographic, somehow convinced that their world will be bettered by etching something on their aging bodies.
We had one of those frightful movie types from Los Angeles arrive at the club a month or so ago. He was introduced to us by one of our shady new mems, who got into the home of homes in the last intake in order to enlarge our dwindling exchequer.
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The usual topics swirled around the senior reading room this week: grasping politicians and their expenses, the socialistic CBC, cats in general, watered-down drinks, wives who jump to conclusions with bitter results and whether we have to love our offspring.
It was a smorgasbord for everyone to participate in and we did with a good deal of vigour.
There were harsh words all round for wives who don’t seem to give a chap enough time to explain strange situations. One member through a clenched jaw pointed out that he was simply trying to give the gift of life to a young girl whom he had found injured on the street, or so he thought at the time.
As it turned out, the girl in question had lost her contact lens and so was crawling along the curb in an effort to locate it when Robert (Fatty) Baker from the club found her.
Now all pamphlets on this subject say clearly that time is of the essence, so our Fatty moved like a panther and had her in a lip lock before one could say “First responder.”
The upshot was embarrassing to one and all. Instead of the expected medal, our boy faces internal exile in the pink guest bedroom with richly coloured bruises on his cheek from both his wife and the girl’s current chap. Very sad.
My addition to the conversation was the fact that I am not at all sure I care for my grandchildren, unlike what is suggested in the book on grandfathering.
My own children were no thrill to us in the first place. Most of them just wore blank stares until they became teenagers, when they went feral. In their 20s they became cunning and would talk about us in corners behind our backs.
As far as their children are concerned, I know for a fact that the jug-eared one with the funny eye has lit me on fire twice. He always reminds me of a taxi with its doors open and a flickering turn signal. The rest aren’t much better as they have a tendency to go through my pockets when I sleep on the couch in the afternoon.
I admit that as time sprints along I have become a tiny bit more confused with the daily goings-on I am forced to endure. I am sorry, but that is what I am now in the late stages of this poker game.
My latest fall from grace concerns the fact that I have begun to give away my grandchildren when I am dragooned into taking the little hemorrhoids for a walk to our park. I choose to say I am merely trading up, because I did come home with someone, just not the same one that I left with earlier.
The item brought home was one of those bright-eyed chaps of about three years old who a few years earlier, while breastfeeding, announced, “Please pass the pablum” to his startled mother.
We happily discussed Stalin and the gulags on the way home, only to be met by my hysterical daughter-in-law wanting to know where the small equivalent of Jesse James had got to. In my defence, the teenage nanny who had done the swap seemed indifferent to my taking her charge and leaving Rupert in his stead. She was, however, smoking an enormous cigarette.
I know I shouldn’t have done it, but neither, on the other hand, must I be made to feel deceitful. After all, in my wasteland of a brain I thought I was improving the landscape. I handed in unsatisfactory goods and received a more up-to-date model, QED. I do realize that society expects we seniors to love our grandchildren, but I don’t trust them.
A smattering of applause greeted the conclusion of my tale at the club, which perked me up indeed. However, I have been banned from family walks for the foreseeable.
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