Sourpusses and Something to Laugh About

For the past three or four years I’ve been telling everyone that I’m almost seventy when, in fact, I’ve still got two years to go before I effortlessly float into Septuagenarian Land like a feather on the wind. At least that's the plan and, no, I don’t have a propensity for lying. I’m just trying to avoid the depression of achieving that benchmark that my mother went through on her 70^th birthday. I figure after the long prelude I’m giving myself to becoming a septuagenarian, I’ll be so used to saying the big S word that I won’t even notice that on my 70^th birthday I’ll be just around the corner from death. Yes, Virginia, youth is wasted on the young.

They say that laughing every day keeps you young. Okay, I can do that but I ran into an older-than-me woman the other day who probably hasn’t cracked a smile in decades. I had stopped at a VFW roast beef dinner that is popular with the after church crowd in the area and just before I got to the first course in the cafeteria style line, the woman cut in front of me and brought three other people with her.

Looking down her nose at me, she said, “You’ve been here before so you can go to the end of the line.”

“No I haven’t,” I replied. “I just got here.”

“Really? Well we’re here now,” she shot back, “we’re not moving.”

As I contemplated the fact that I’d just been treated like chopped dog food, her husband whispered an apologized for her behavior and I was washed in sympathy for the man. She’d probably been acting like a prick her whole life and he’d been humbly mopping up after her since their marriage. They’d obviously just come from church which got me to wondering what that woman did when the minister is giving his sermons. Does she mentally make out her grocery list when he’s talking about love thee neighbor and other Golden Rule type anecdotal stories? Does she visualize the choir director in his underwear? Love, peace and fellowship---what the hell do those things mean to a woman who acts as if rudeness is her God-given right?

I didn’t say it, but it put a smile on my face to think about what I should have said to the sourpuss, line cutting church lady. I should have said: “That’s okay. Octogenarians like you are always in a hurry since you’ll be meeting your maker any day now. Me, I’m still a sexagenarian so I’ve got more time here on earth.” ©

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