Quit Your Whining

I have always wanted to know the answer to the following question: “Why are old people so crabby all the time?” Oh sure, there are a couple of exceptions here and there (Mother Theresa comes to mind) but for the most part, older people’s favorite activity outside of comparing photographs of their grandchildren is to tell we, younger folk just how much worse their lives were when they were our age. Most younger people will listen kindly to this reverie, especially when it is coming from the mouth of a relative, but secretly, we are all praying that another older person will soon come along with a whole new batch of photographs to show them.

I finally decided to get down to the bottom of this mystery using the scientific method. Namely, I asked a bunch of older people (two grandpas three grandmas and a great-grand uncle) to list five things that would make them happier. It took a while for them to realize that I had not come to look at pictures of their cherubic grandchildren, but once they saw that I was doing important scientific research, they decided unceremoniously that it was time to take a nap.

Having gone through almost a dozen older people without getting a single answer, I realized that I was becoming pretty crabby myself. Examining myself, I started to realize that I was getting crabby because every minute that went by meant that I was one minute closer to being an older person myself. It would not be long, I imagined, before people started coming up to me and asking to see pictures of my own grandchildren.

Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, it all made sense. The answers to all of life’s biggest questions lay open before me: Where did we come from? Where are we going? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootise-pop? Older people’s needs boil down to some pretty simple stuff after all. Instead of treating them like old, musty relics of the Stone Age, they want us to see them as the harbingers of retro fashion. Instead of looking at them and seeing arthritic bones incapable of making it up a flight of stairs without assistance, they want us to see people dedicated to maintaining a much more livable pace of life. Instead of seeing pictures of grandchildren as evidence of their own age, they want us to see the youth and vigor that is hidden deep inside of them.

Oh and one more thing. Older people want better health care.

That last point is pretty immutable. Luckily the master of making people feel younger has just the right medicine for even the bitterest old pills out there. Dr. Seuss, famous for over 40 children’s books produced one volume that would make a perfect present for any older person. (Any older person who has at least four picture albums that would fit in their pocketbooks, that is.)

Seuss’ You’re Only Old Once! is a story of an aged everyman who goes through the trials and tribulations found at the Golden Years Clinic for Spleen Readjustment and Muffler Repair. Seuss, using a particularly mature version of his well-known verse captures the confusion and frustration that often accompanies visits to the hospital. It is a lesson that anyone can appreciate, but I noted before, older people particularly understand.

The everyman takes each increasingly annoying exam or routine with amazing aplomb. Whether being forced to endure an Eyesight and Solvency Test (which reads increasingly larger lines:

“Have You Any Idea
How Much Money
These Tests Are
Costing
You?”

or being observed by the Oglers using contraptions that we can only assume are relatives of X-Ray machines, or enduring the pill drill which explains which of the dozen different pills that he must take, the main character is always at the exasperating whim of the medical system. With only the waiting room fish, Norval, as anything close to a confidant, the generic protagonist is given no respite from the examinations. Seuss’ typical surrealistic illustrations provide just the right image of the often-impersonal equipment and methods typical of the medical community. As with all Seuss stories, this one has a happy ending as our hero is given a clean bill of health and bids adieu to the waiting room, fish and all.

Anyone familiar with Seuss, will realize that this makes excellent bedtime reading, although this is one book where it makes sense to turn the tables around and have a youngster read it to the oldster. The book will resonate especially with older people currently in hospitals or homes, as the humor will be greatly appreciated. Give all obsolete children (to whom this book is dedicated) in your life some peace of mind. Tell them you love them, aged bones and all. Tell them you want to hear all of the stories from when they were young. And send them You’re Only Old Once, preferably wrapped in pictures of their grandchildren.


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This review is a part of an Aging Write-Off hosted by ed_grover. Originally planned to celebrate Older Americans Month during May, it was opened up to everyone, anywhere, because of America’s reputation as a melting pot. We are celebrating the member diversity found on the Epinions.com site.

Please join the following participants from Canada, the UK and the USA who are celebrating Aging with everything from humor to more serious subjects. Read on!

AdaDavis, Angelabar, argonut, Aruzenchin, BeeCharmer, bleuchance, Bluehawq, Dave_Corbit, ed_grover, egab01, eplovejoy, fjbpab, frazzledspice, Free2Be, hadassahchana, jankp, jo.com, julliette, KateTPZ, kurt_messick, Lisa_J, LordBalfor, Macondo, MrsNormanMain, Nfp, Nobody_knows, Prepoia, pambo, phineaskc, prettyinpink, psychovant, scmrak, Stephen_Murray, Straight-up, tekki, wanbi_gleska, Wovengold.

Angelabar has designed a special Web page for this write-off that will make accessing the participants much easier. It is located at: http://www.pronetisp.net/~anjuliz/older_american.html