God’s Waiting Room
Older people worry about becoming a burden upon others.
Or so says the Irish Times.
Bollox!
I positively relish the idea of being a burden. Having spent a life slaving away paying taxes to support the idle, the workshy and the politicians, and making great sacrifices so that the daughter can have an education, it is now my time. It is time for me to sit back and reap the rewards and let others look after me for a change.
And 65% are uncomfortable with the idea of living in a nursing home? That presumably means 35% are confortable?
I am not uncomfortable with the idea of a nursing home. Oh no! It is way beyond uncomfortable. I abhor the idea. It is up there with having to live in New York or constantly listening to Daniel OâDonnell â sheer fucking Hell on Earth.
I could not even contemplate living in a place where I am told I cannot smoke or enjoy any of lifeâs little pleasures; a place where I am either placed in a chair to stare at a blank wall all day or am forced into âcommunal activitiesâ like a singsong around the piano or a game of bingo in the recreation room; a place where I have to âabide by the rulesâ and life to a pattern set down by others. That is not in my plan.
My vision of the future is simple. My only wish is to drive through my later years at top speed, with the roof down and the radio blaring. If I have a prang, I expect people to pick me up, dust me off and send me on my way again. God knows I have picked up enough people in the past without a word of thanks so now itâs my turn.
Ideally, the end will come as I am belting along doing the ton, and singing my head off to the sounds of the seventies. There will be an explosion and ball of fire â the ultimate blaze of glory.
The idea of sitting in a wheelchair, doped up to my eyeballs, gasping for a smoke and just sitting waiting for the Grim Reaper fills me with dread.
Iâd rather slit my wrists.
I agree 100% with you! The thought of a nursing home sends shivers up my spine! God forbid!
I have been in a few and frankly I would rather spend my last days in the maximum security wing of Mountjoy! At least the company would be more lively….
My sentiments entirely!
Just hope the body keeps functioning well enough to cope with this place and the half-acre of rock and dirt I’m trying to keep the upper hand with.
Hope the brain keeps ticking over as well – I’m starting to forget the names of things…………Who are you again??Â
Meltemian – Another thing I intend to do is to wear out as many parts of me as possible. What’s the point of burying a sound liver or full set of teeth?
Bravo GD. +1
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Growing old gracefully is most definitely not on the agenda for me either. In fact, the more disgracefully I can grow old, the better I shall like it.
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I’ve made a start by marrying (this is the third time around – yes, I know, a glutton for punishment…) a woman 22 years younger than me, in the hope that she will induce one of those legendary heart attacks that will assure me a place in the ranks of the “what a way to go” elite.
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Failing that, I continue to consume heroic quantities of alcohol and tobacco so as not to leave behind any healthy bits of body, same as you. If, despite the abuse heaped on it over the last threescore years and more, my body continues to function even as my mind starts to fade, I have contingency plans for that too.
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Nobody is going to wipe my arse and dab the dribble from my chin, of that I am determined.
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I’m with Kingsley Amis, who once quipped:
âNo pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mareâ
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Amen to that.
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Looks like you got one tangled up in your spaminator. Be a good chap and untangle it for me, would you?
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Cheers. Bushmills with a Guinness chaser for you, was it?
Is this like a website for geriactrics or something? 🙂
My pops passed away last week.. doped up to his eyeballs, probably gasping for a pint..    it was very surreal being there as he took his last breaths.   It’s pretty tough.. I don’t think he’d have wanted to be a burden at all - I’d give out to him for continually telling the nurses and doctors he was grand.Â
I don’t know if you’d really want to be that kind of burden on anyone GD?Â
Anyways, don’t be filled with dread.. complemplate ‘the return’ or something or other as said in the Tao te ching, or was that Elvis? ‘Return to sender..’ ?  :)  Â
Nisakiman – 22 years younger, huh? … [*pauses to wonder how others have all the luck*] … Fair play. Going out with a bang, as it were? I also will raise a glass to Mr. Amis. And you got stuck in my spamminator as a punishment for pasting text from an Internet Explorer. [Version 4??????]
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Anne – I’m sorry to hear about your Pops. I went down that same road , though many many years ago [1974]. It’s not an easy time for you. Strangely enough, I have no dread.  I won’t say I’m exactly counting down the days but I’m not worried. I fully intend to come back as an horrific spectre and haunt the shite out of the anti-smokers, politicians and anyone else who thought they owned me.
“And you got stuck in my spamminator as a punishment for pasting text from an Internet Explorer. [Version 4??????]”
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Blimey, is that where it came from? It’s just a quote I saw and liked, so copied and filed it for future use. IE4? Cripes, that’s from the days of dial-up, isn’t it?
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I’ll have to re-write that quote in Word!
One of the little lessons I learned in life is that if you cut and paste from a Microsoft thing it invariably causes problems. Your comment was full of coding and formatting crap which I had to delete. It mentioned Explorer 4 in the code, but that is probably because Microsoft never bothered updating that piece of code.
I agree, I fully intend to go in my own time and will never go into any nursing home, my idea of hell, and what is the point of sitting there waiting to die anyway? My friend Jeannie who died last May said her last words would be ,”Have I time for another cigarette” and she did – way to go.
Thanks GD!  ‘Pops’ Makes us sound like the Waltons huh! 🙂
Always put a bit of a smile on him when I said it though.
1974.. wow. 2 years before I was born.Â
And I remember your post recently too about him.. with the advise at the end of making the most of fathers who’re still around.  Paid heed to it too.   Â
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Damn it, my spellings are terrible.
With the advice at the end - of making the most of fathers whoâre still around. Paid heed to it too. Â