The Spittle Chunks of the Aged.

[bratenfrau]

We have this courier at the papers whose sole job it is to drive between our three offices once a day and deliver all the assorted miscellany that goes along with running a spread-out company: ad specs, proofs, invoices and the like, most of which could be faxed but hey, somebody's elderly father-in-law needed the job. The spry senior in question

Comments

[bratenfrau]

Yeah, I think if you actually had to sit and listen to his nearly entirely unfathomable anecdotes every day while you're trying to work, you might feel differently. I think I'm the only person in all the offices who's actually not completely rude and brusque with him, so that's why he must have an Inappropriate Grandpa Crush.

Oh, and yes! That sound that's kind of a combo between a really dry-mouth sound and a denture click or something?? That's a solid gold "ick." And why DO old people have to be such close-talkers, do they not realize that their breath typically smells like they're decaying from the inside out and they can no longer control the volume of their voice?

[fit_2b_tied]

OMG! Yeah... sure its some kind of denture thing. Blech! Brush and floss your teeth, and keep your blood sugar levels in check, kids... seriously there are sooooooooo many things we can avoid happening to us with just a little bit of careful foresight!

[fit_2b_tied]

ooh! And cakeandmilque, I love your nara icon ;-)

[nancy_drew]

let's do it! pull out the jackson 5 and al green and get down, or imagine you are, anyway!

[bratenfrau]

Haha! Whenever he tells me this, I always want to like do a quick break to the ground to a split and then spring up, turn around and give him the double fingerpoint or something. You know, whatever James Brown would do if he were similarly well-wished.

[nancy_drew]

i was about to say - "Solid Gold weekend" - i want someone to tell me to have a Solid Gold weekend. without the white stuff drooling out of their mouth and stuff. then again i generally like old people a lot.

[bratenfrau]

Sadly, it's only Tuesday. But I guess a Solid Gold Wednesday might not be so bad either? :)

Elders and such

[usaresistance]

It is sad that in our culture, the elderly offer little to the young besides cynicism, corporatized consumerism, and traditional family values, as they are our ancestors, and in other cultures are treated with respect and love, even looked up to for advice and teaching. In a highly evolved society (i read this in a book, Conversations With God[dess]), the elders would raise the children made by the young folks... that is my kinda world! The elders are supposed to be the storehouses of our ancestry, yet our society is so compartmentalized and separated from Mother Earth, they are kinda offensive. I think i was born in the wrong culture or something... and i am not talking about you... this is a common feeling in our culture to discard our elderly or hide them away, whether it is due to the inevitability that we all get old and saggy, or that they just smell funny, or that they are not at all feminists for the most part and call you honey and such, or that they drive too slow and erratically, who the fuck knows.. but America's

Re: Elders and such

[bratenfrau]

I agree that in an ideal world, there would be an actual function for old people besides just as a dedicated viewership for Fox's "From the Heartland," or helping to buy up all the Lincoln Continentals so we don't have to. But on the other hand, medical science is allowing people to vastly outlive their usefulness in this culture, so it's already pretty unnatural that we have ninety year old people still hanging on by a thread and draining their childrens' inheritance funds at their overpriced elder-care facilities. People like Cap really, honestly, shouldn't be alive in the first place. That sounds harsh, but I mean that it is simply unnatural to actually outlive your own societal niche. But then, I guess that's what Florida is for: creating a Storehouse for the Elderly where we can tuck them and their unsightly oozing wounds that never heal away for good. :)

Re: Elders and such

[usaresistance]

In China, it is expected that people live to be one hundred, so i wouldn't just blame it on modern medical science, though you sure could blame a lot of things on western allopathic medicine, for sure! They actually seem to kill them off sooner in many cases of putting them on all sorts of synthetic medicines that poison their poor little livers and shit....

i believe the main reason people tend to live longer is sanitation... or so i have read. i think the vast increases in property values, and thus land taxes, will drive a lot of them elsewhere... one can only hope!

Re: Elders and such

[bratenfrau]

Yes, but in a place like China, where the average person has far less access to health care, people who are living to be 100 are a lot more likely to actually be NOT just a semi-vegetative spittle-chunk-blowing mess at that age. If you make it to 100 in a place like Okinawa, for example, which I believe has the longest life expectancy in the world, it's because you're still relatively fit and with it at 100. Not because you've been toting around an oxygen tank on the back of your Rascal for the last 34 years. That's all I'm sayin'.

You're right about sanitation though, that probably has more to do with it than our (relatively shoddy) healthcare system.