THE CREEP OF AGE

While strolling home I saw a Chinese girl running up hill in the rain. I would have offered her a place under my umbrella, but she was too fast, and on the other side of the street. Besides, I didn't see her till I looked up from tamping my pipe. And it's unlikely a little miss nowadays would willingly shelter with someone smoking.

The tobacco, by my standards, was completely inoffensive. A fine red Virginia with a minute addition of condimental leaf. Also, the pipe was worth noting, as it was made several years before I was born, a veritable antique at this point. Predates my arrival on the planet by twenty or thirty years. A damned fine piece of equipment.

But as I said, a younger female would have thought it "icky".
Everything older than cell-phones is "icky".

Especially old geezers who need their warm milkie-milk of an evening let's get you to bed gramps are you wearing your incontinence pants and have you had your Metamucil? Yeah, okay, seeing a small person running does that; makes me feel fossilized and decrepit.

On that note, I am pleased that the old fellow I see occasionally at the bakery around tea time every week seems to be recovering nicely from the bruising caused by falling on his face. When I saw him the last time I was sure that he was on bloodthinners because of the extent of the markings, now they're almost gone. Next week he'll be right as rain.

For some reason the ladies at both of the bakeries I go to for afternoon tea and a snack keep urging me to stay longer, sit a while, it's cold and nasty outside. It is highly unlikely that my company brings them much joy, and, cynically, I think it more likely that they don't want the decrepit old fossil to catch his death of cold. What argues against that interpretation is that several of the regulars are obviously older and more doddersome than myself.
But maybe white people look like hell when they're past thirty?
And I am certifiably a white person.

Extended fifties.

Younger people, especially women of refined sensibilities, tend to think of folks older than forty as rather like moldy bread. Yes, you could eat around the blue-green parts, but evenso, hyphae will probably have penetrated deeply into the spongy food, and spores will occur throughout, rendering it potentially harmful. Mycotoxins! Better to trash it pronto.

A better analogy is blue cheese; visible mold is mostly harmless.
Yep, that's the ticket. Oldier and moldier is goodier!
Mature individuals are like cheese.


Anyhow, that early evening pipe was a damned fine smoke. Heavely. No matter the rain or wind, and totally disregarding the fact that for the last three blocks I was afraid I would stumble because I couldn't feel my feet anymore due to the cold.
Who goes around feeling their feet in any case?

I would much rather feel someone else's!


I think I'll dive under the covers now.
It's nice and warm there.



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