Getting Old the Elderly Way

It's fashionable to be old in America these days.

Our elderly are treated with reverence tinged with envy, altogether proper for a generation that has done so much for so few: Themselves. 

There's never been a better time to list "Frail & Elderly" on your resume. It's in our collective DNA to treat old people with admiration and respect whether they deserve it or not. Get in line.

"Elderly" is a hot ticket and 75 is the new 90. If you're not a geezer it's easy to impersonate one: First, press small bits of food to the corners of your mouth and between your teeth. Leave half the collar turned up on your stained button-down shirt. Crocs and mismatched socks complete the look. 

Being old is not as difficult as you think. Anyone with a functioning calendar, like the one hanging on the back door in your kitchen, has all the tools necessary to get down to business and start getting old.

With rudimentary arithmetic skills you can accomplish decades of old-getting in just a few decades. I try to explain this to my wife but she's unable to grasp the concept. She's probably confused from getting old.

But ever since I've known her, Trophy has been re-calculating her age each birthday and it always comes to 39. 

I'm not sure if that's 39 months, decades or years, but why ask? When you get old no one cares if you add things up mistakenly except the tightwads over at Social Security, so my advice is to tell them nothing. Remember (but you won't) that confusion is your friend and if anyone asks it's all side effects from the meds. 

Old age does bring a few unpleasantries, and they will continue beyond the end of this column and persist a good while longer. Only you will know when the miseries are about to stop, which will be extremely late in your life, and sad. But not for your lawyer, nephews or nieces.

Now some tips:

GROOMING is mostly Hair and Teeth. If you have none of either feel free to skip a few paragraphs. 

Our God is a wise and benevolent God, but when He doth eliminated hair from our elderly scalps and inserted hair into our ear canals it verily caused much wailing and lamenting. Bad bargain? You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait'll you hear what happens to your teeth.

Regardless, disappearing hair is easier for women because they get to do the wig thing, but God evens it out with menopause. And no matter if your head is bald, shiny and your only hair product is Turtle Wax, you still look better than any dude in a Man Bun. 

Next, WARDROBE but why bother? If you throw all your old shirts and trousers away, then go to JC Penney to buy new clothes all you'll do is fill your empty closet with the same stuff you got rid of this morning. 

Could it be otherwise? Do you think, at your age, you're going to bring home some baggie-butt bluejeans that drape down halfway to your knees in the rear and you need to hold up with one hand? A rainbow t-shirt with a feeb social justice message? Some orange-and-yellow $800 sneakers? A backward-style baseball cap? 

No, you'd come home with a hep Hawaiian shirt and a pair of flannel jobs plus some Dockers, but cleaner than the ones you tossed. And Old Spice instead of the cap. 

Perhaps your health is deteriorating, you've got lots of those cataract-retinal-vision problems and have gone blind. In that case go for the orange shoes.

FOOD: No need to worry about having to eat canned cat food or only go to restaurants with half-price senior menus. Why? Because as an old boomer you'll be rich. Read on.

MONEY: The genius of the recently retired has been its relentless focus on hoarding as much of the nation's wealth as possible, accomplished by half a century of voting for Democrats. You'll note our country no longer spends on bridges, highways, dams or future needs. Instead the government, in exchange for votes, sends checks to people. And there's never been a bigger bunch of people than us boomers.

Millennials and GenXers, watching from the sidelines, are envious. They want in on the action. They see how those born in the 1940s have looted the Treasury Department and Social Security to their own advantage and want to climb aboard the gravy train before it goes over a cliff. (Because there's no money for maintaining railroad tracks, that's why.)

Yeah, so there is a downside to this elderly business. Hurry up and get old before it's too late.