More than they bargained for

It is not easy getting older, as my mother can attest. "Everyone always wants to hold the door open for me, and asks what they can do for me," she said recently. "They all treat me like I'm old."

"Well, how old do you have to be before you're old?" I said. I had been under the impression that perhaps her 87 years qualified her.

She wasn't sure, but old was definitely older than she was.

Yet there are certain advantages to being older. For one, you can fall asleep anywhere, anytime of day, and it generally passes unremarked upon by others, whereas this sort of behavior is frowned upon when engaged in by younger persons during gatherings such as funerals. Particularly if you are the one conducting the funeral.

Another advantage to age is that you pretty much get to say whatever you want, and it does not really bother you all that much. An example is my mother, who may be one of the few people not annoyed by telemarketers. Their calls offer an excellent opportunity for her to talk about what is wrong -- with her, the weather, her toilet, the world in general -- and get out of whatever they are selling or asking, all at the same time.

She feels that she is justified in engaging in these discussions because the telemarketers "always ask how I am doing today. I should tell them, shouldn't I?"

And tell them she does:

"I'm doing horrible today...Why? Well, I've fallen down three times recently and have all these bumps on my head and had to get two CT scans but I couldn't get to the doctor because I don't have a car even though that last accident wasn't my fault and --"

The telemarketer is gone at "all these bumps."

"But I didn't even get to the part about my shingles yet," my mother says, with disappointment, to the dial tone.

When told of this, the Hero sees an immediate application. "We should make it so all our calls from telemarketers get rerouted to your mom's," he says. 

If we did, the telemarketers might begin to feel old before their time. That is, whatever old is these days.