Perhaps nothing riles us, the elderly, so much as our absent-mindedness, forgetfulness and shortsightedness – foibles that are the bane of our lives as we struggle to cope with our declining faculties and short-fuse tempers, not to mention the general inconsiderateness around us.
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Sometimes after breakfast I thoughtlessly put away the butter-dish on the shelf and the butter-knife in the fridge. When my wife discovers the switch, her composure invariably melts much faster than the butter has — both no doubt aided by increasing global warming!
Or you leave your costly specs on the sofa untended for a few minutes to go to the loo — and return to find your spouse ponderously perched on them, eyes glued to the TV. Or when leaving the church you unwittingly ‘hijack’ someone else’s shoes that look like yours and head home, realising the mistake only when they begin to pinch. Or sometimes you sally forth wearing odd socks and wonder why people snigger.
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While hurriedly shaving the other day I absent-mindedly lathered my face with toothpaste and ran the razor up and down, none the wiser about the mix-up. Maybe the day is not far off when I will end up brushing my teeth (or what’s left of them) with shaving cream! For sheer safety’s sake I now keep the tube of Fevicol at home well away from our toiletries!
I am no kleptomaniac. Yet sometimes I innocently and unknowingly pocket the pens provided by banks and post offices to fill up pay-in-slips etc. — and then irritably wonder why some of them ‘tether’ these to the counter with a length of twine!
There are other galling irritants too. When you are looking forward to your post-lunch siesta, the youngsters next door inconsiderately turn on their stereo. Or at the dead of night your neighbour’s Alsatian jolts you and your spouse awake with a prolonged frenzy of barking. Or when you take the car out, impatient motorists seem to gang up to honk you off the road.
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Then sometimes the seam of your trousers gives way (quite audibly and embarrassingly) when you stoop to pick up something you have dropped while shopping, your fly zipper gets irretrievably stuck (usually in a public toilet) or your dentures let you down badly (or, rather, let themselves down quite literally and inopportunely) when you’re making a speech! Now and then you get your appointment with the dentist mixed up with that of your physician, and land up at the wrong clinic at the wrong time. Or you smugly apply ear drops in your clogged nose and vice versa, mercifully with no apparent adverse results.
Life is certainly no bed of roses for senior citizens fending for themselves. Yet, like other oldies, we stolidly soldier on, taking such vexations in our faltering stride!
gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com