So the flu is upon us. My mum calls this morning asking, “What’s the shame in wearing a mask.”
“But what will my office people think?”
“Why are you worried about what they’ll think? When you wear those strange clothes, and those terrible pants where the crotch is at your feet (she makes ali baba pants sound like pervert pants), do you worry about what they think?”
How does she do it? How does a conversation that starts at swine flu end at my appalling taste in clothes?
Anyway, my mum just got her own cell phone. I now have to call on the landline and instruct her how to pick up the mobile. And then call her back on the cell. Hopefully, in another week her dread of the cell should go. Or else like her last phone this one too will disappear into her underwear drawer.
The only bright spot in the newspaper has been the whole Tata initiative of letting women who’ve taken a break from work, rejoin the workforce.
I read an article about it this morning and spotted the ad a week back. It’s brilliant, just the sort of thing you’d expect from the Tata’s. So it got me thinking. Why can’t someone do something similar for the retired?
Take my dad. He’s about 64. He plays a sport every single day. He’s full of beans (touch wood), drives 30 kms to work (touch wood), looks like a movie star (hey, not just because he’s my dad because he just does okay!). He loves his drink, loves to work…and used to be a kick-ass fighter pilot, who had to retire because he turned 58.
Isn’t that just crappy? Here we are saying 40 is the new 30. 50 is the new ‘let’s get up and dance.’ 60 is when you’re just beginning to let go of your hang ups and enjoy life – and then we’re just retiring a whole lot of people because they hit 58.
Why? How old is the guy who runs the country dude? How come they don’t have to retire? So why this babu rule for the rest of us? An outdated rule and an outdated retirement age.
And before I go, a quick update on the dance class. Someone there thought I was 22. Tra la la. Okay fine, he’s not a particularly bright guy. But who cares, he still thought I was 22. Tra la la.
those are my senior citizens. when i see them, I always think of the neil diamond song 'forever in blue jeans'. probably because it always played around the house when I was a kid. or probably because " I'd like to say, We'll do okay, Forever in blue jeans" kind of captures what my parents are about. happy go lucky, crazy kids at 64! *Touch wood*
Dude, these are my parents, of course I'm superstitious!
