Geriatrics.
OAPs.
Elderly.
Grannies.
Coffin-hoggers.
Grave-dodgers.
Teacake munchers.
The list goes on and on.
And did you ever wonder why old people, who really had their whole lives to acquire wisdom and taste, suddenly lose all sense thereof on the day of their 60th-something birthday? Is 60 a particular turning point, a waking-up moment, when they decide that certain things are just perfectly ok to wear? Or to say? God help us all. I have about 31 years to go...
The other morning, Emma and I were setting up the furniture outside, when this old dude jogged past us - bare-chested, wearing only tight orange shorts (hot pants, more accurately) and bright, glowing orange knee socks?
At what point did this guy decide that wearing this was a good idea???
Emma and I stared after him, in disbelief, and then Emma collapsed laughing, saying: "He's been tangoed!"
Why do all the old people have the same hair cut, anyway? Are you obliged, like, on your 60th birthday, to turn your long hippie locks into a grannie perm?
(When I'm a grannie, I wanna be a cool one with long gray hair and funky shit in her house, who slaughters her own cows for a barbie, like the grannie in "Twister". Just FYI.)
And why do old men, on their 60th birthday, seem to decide that it's suddenly a good idea to wear speedos?????? It's a universal truth. If you see people on Bournemouth Beach, they are either foreign or 60+. It's scary. Speedos are Satan's beach outfit. The day can be as beautiful as can be, if the first thing I see in the morning is a coffin-dodger bouncing in the surf in his speedos, it's killed my day... and my libido, for yet another week.
Speaking of this, the other day I saw an old dude who just took the trauma to a whole new level.
I was walking down the beach on my lunch break, looking for Dan, and as I was heading for the pier (cos, yo, Dan was totally on the East side, bro!), I see this mummy-in-the-making walking towards me. Probably heading for the big 7-0, with 100mph. Unnatural, unhealthy deep leathery tan. And he did not just wear speedos. No. It was a thong!!! And not just a thong, it was a thong the colour of his skin. The first thing my brain screamed at me: "Block out! NAKED DUDE AT 12 O'CLOCK!"
Even this would only have been half as bad... if he hadn't been hung like a donkey! What is it with old men, that their ears and their genitals seem to double in size with advancing age??? EWWW. Does it grow? Or do they shrink???
Anyways, so there is this dude heading in my rough direction, his monstrous package swaying leisurely about. My visual nerves screamed, and shut down, and it took me a lot of will power to not holler and run.
I arrived at the East Cliff station, pale as death, and Dan was there, and I began to tell him about my trauma. I didn't get far in my description, because Dan stopped me and said: "Man! Did he wear a thong??"
Yes, Thong Man was that traumatising. Not just did Dan remember him (out of the gazillion people he watches every day), but also, just the other day, I talked to one of the train drivers, and he remembered that guy as well, even though since that incident a month had passed.
I want to claw out the brain cells that store that memory. *shudder*
There is something else about old people down here that mildly freaks me out. I walked down the beach promenade at some point this summer, past the masses snoozing and motionlessly frying in the sun, and suddenly it occured to me that some of these old people on their blankets could, for all I knew, be dead! No one would know until about 5 or 6 in the afternoon, when people started leaving the beach, and all that would be left behind are the slightly overcooked remains of Aunt Mildred and Uncle Monty.
This is so like that Depeche Mode song.
"Death is everywhere
there's a fly on the windscreen for a start..."
They must have written that while being on holiday down here.
No comments:
Post a Comment