The Awful Age Of Bits Falling Off

by Neil Bamforth

There are a lot of people in this world significantly older than my 60 years. There are also a lot of people in this world significantly younger than me.

Bastards.

I read somewhere that 60 is the new 40. In other words, as humanity start to live longer, 60 is supposed to be ‘middle aged’ as opposed to 40.

I have no idea who the moron who came out with such gibberish is. Just as well really or I might seek them out and thump them.

I categorically know that 60 is not the new 40.

Quite simply, when I was 40, bits weren’t falling off all over the place.

Well, when I say ‘falling off’ I’m being metaphorical.

At 40 I could still play football to a good standard. At 40 I could still flirt with a younger woman and not qualify as a dirty old man. At 40 I could still act, and, indeed, perform – if you get my drift – like I was 20.

Why are people living longer to 80 and 90 and beyond? What is the point – apart from giving some idiot the chance to say “Hey! 60 is the new 40!”

Twat.

My mother is 88. She has serious mobility issues, her mind is often in la-la land, she lives alone and keeps ringing me up to tell me she’s depressed. She can’t eat much as she has little appetite and she can’t taste what she does eat.

She has no quality of life.

If she was a horse she would be in a tin of dog food by now.

If she was a dog I’d have taken her to the vets one last time by now.

Actually, is that a plan? I’ll contact Bonzo Dog Food and the nearest vet to her. Well? You never know do you? What’s wrong with mercy killings? Well, it would be a mercy on me anyway.

So. What is it with everyone living longer then? Well, not everyone clearly. Some unlucky people shuffle off much earlier either via an unwinnable argument with a truck or some awful ailment like cancer. A lot of people though, are definitely living longer. I know this is true because I see them walking about, or, at least, tottering about. If they aren’t alive then the zombie apocalypse has happened and nobody noticed.

My mother in law lived until she was 92, or was it 93? Anyway, it was a very good age indeed. Sharp as a knife as well, right up to, and including, the day she died.

“I can’t see the TV” she suddenly announced to her husband, “I think I’m going”
“Going where?” he asked
“Going you fool!” she stated
“Oh,” he replied, “shall I get you an aspirin?”
“I don’t think that will help dear,” she said and died there and then.

There’s far worse ways to go, and before you reach 93 too.

I think that is the whole point. If we are living longer then all well and good but, there has to be a reasonable quality of life. Otherwise it just isn’t worth it.

Hollywood actor of the 30’s right into the early 70’s, George Sanders, reportedly said something like “When I have reached the age where I can no longer enjoy a woman and a nurse is needed to wipe my bottom I will commit suicide”. On reaching said age in his mind he duly did. Good man.

I doubt I would be brave enough to do such a thing although, I do feel if I reach the age a la George Sanders it would surely be a temptation would it not?

My only real issue with growing old is that, in doing so, like all people fortunate enough to be growing old, the inevitable is but delayed. And long may it be delayed but, with a quality of life.

Death will not become me, that’s for sure. I almost envy people of faith. They may be believing in bull but, if it stops them fearing death, then good luck to them. I fear death mainly because, without any faith, it can only mean ‘lights out’. An end to consciousness. An eternity of not existing. The thought terrifies me. Mainly because there clearly won’t be a bar.

Still, whilst I fear death, do I want to ‘exist’? Be alive but not alive. So decrepit that I need a nurse to wipe my bottom.

No. Absolutely not.

Death may be hard if you know it’s about to happen. Dying in ones sleep being infinitely the better option but, hard though death may be to accept when it arrives, living without any quality of life would surely be harder still.

Besides. Once dead, it hardly matters if bits drop off does it?

I am of an age when life seems oddly more precious than it did in my 20’s or 30’s or, even, 40’s. Probably as, due to my smoking and drinking habits, I am unlikely to make my four score years, let alone the added ten.

On my gravestone would be my last statement.

Copy Spike Milligan’s ‘I Told You I Was Ill’? Perhaps.

I rather favor a nod to George Sanders. ‘Nobody Wipes MY Bottom But Me’.

Here’s to nothing dropping off for a long while yet.

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