Senior Moments.

 Our planet is heaving under the weight of millions of humans, each one mostly unwittingly contributing towards a bleak future. Melting ice caps, the exhaustion of fossil fuels and the possibility of more One Direction albums can only be blamed on, and stopped, by us. In the west a major problem is the burgeoning  age  of the population. Thirty years ago people weren’t bullied by health authorities, dieticians and ‘food gurus’, they lived properly and died well before it was necessary to browse through a mobility scooter catalogue and develop a taste for Murray Mints. ‘Superfoods’ were only mentioned if you’d had a particularly good fry up and ‘five a day’ meant a half arsed attempt to cut down on smoking.

 Yet we are told to look after ourselves so we can live longer to experience the horror, struggle and facebatteringly thankless toughness of existence for an extended time, and then be moaned at for putting a drain on everyone and everything and made to suffer a guilt trip of momentous proportions. 

 Due to my prediliction for self destruction I doubt I’ll ever become old enough to drain anything other than one or two drips on my hospital death bed. This can only really be a relief as otherwise I’ll end up being old and confused but still mobile enough to go shopping. A bit like the following examples of shop bothering octagenarians…

It, unless you’ve not noticed due to a time consuming crack addiction or brain damage from getting excited about the mind dribblingly pointless X Factor, the run up to Christmas. This is a key trading time for us retailers to make money and, as a result,  for elderly relatives to be sent into a new unrecognisable universe populated by i-tunes vouchers instead of  record tokens, self service tills instead of humans in aprons, and inkjet cartridges as opposed to quills. No wonder they get confused but there are still some that baffle in the extreme.

‘To save me walking all the way around the shop, where do you keep your cigarettes?’  asks one old bean.

Yep. This happened. Never mind that since Sir Walter Raleigh opened his first newsagent/potato shop upon returning from the New World (must check Wikipedia on this but I’m pretty certain this was how it was) fags have been kept behind the counter.

 Next up is my new girlfriend. Don’t get excited, I’m not talking of a staggeringly unlikely change of fortune where someone I actually have strong feelings for expresses the same. This isn’t science fiction after all. The new girlfriend is an old lady who just happened upon me rather than any other member of weekday staff. She needed help on a problem so highly complex that the wartime team of Special Operation Executives at Bletchley Park would’ve downed tools over it and wave white handkerchiefs in Germany’s direction: the opening of a metal clasp on a metal box file. For ten minutes I explained ,and made example of, the process of pushing in the little button so the clasp releases from the clip and, voila, instant access to her back issues of The People’s Friend can be easily obtained.

She didn’t understand. I had to write the instructions down for her on a bit of till receipt in the simplest terms and then go through several operational rehearsals before she asked me out. To her car that is to help her carry it. Because I’d displayed such valour and kindness, she tried to give me  £4 for my trouble. Upon telling work colleagues this they were dutifully impressed when I said I passed up the offer.

 That was until I told them I battered her round the head and took her car and purse instead. Four quid indeed, I ask you.

Ahem. She visits me occasionally and always asks if I’m the nice chap who helped her to her car that time. Her lack of certainty means we can feel the first flush of excitement in love anew time and again and I get offered four quid to boot. Nice. This is how you keep a relationship fresh: memory loss.

Other ancients testing the patience are presented thus:

‘Do you sell Christmas cards?’ Oh for crying out loud.

 A customer holding  ink cartridges for that almost forgotten implement, the pen. At the bottom of the packet it says the word blue. The cartridges emanate that royal blue ink familiar to all. ‘Are these blue?’ asks the customer.

 Another old timer with his seemingly not that much younger son were buying inkjets. ‘Do you do white ones?’ asks the dad. Crikey.

Ridiculous. I like it a bit more when we have to play guessing games, they have an almost Dickensian parlour game element about them.

‘I’m after a book about that new band.’ She asks.

‘Ok, which new band?’

‘The one with those chaps in.’

‘One Direction?’

‘Ohhh, that’s them.’

Bring on those melting ice caps, that’s what I say.