Getting Old

Getting Old
John Denver once sang ‘it turns me on to think of growing old’. Really? All I can say to that is ‘get to fuck’.
I’m 70, and here to testify that turning into my dad is indeed a sack of shit. I got out of bed this morning and my knees creaked like a couple of rusty old hinges. I’d already been up twice in the early hours dying on a piss, thanks to a prostate which is now roughly the size of a coconut (a prostate biopsy, now there’s a fun day out at the hospital). Naturally my eyesight’s now shot to buggery, and as usual it took me ten minutes to find my specs as I can never remember where I left them the previous night.
Make no mistake; getting old is about as attractive a proposition as being Flabbott the Hutt’s knickers. No doubt I’m regarded by many as a grumpy get, but there’s good reason for the grumpiness. I’ve never been old before, and you don’t get a chance to rehearse. Old age creeps up on you insidiously, bringing with it a host of small indignities and humiliations. Well meaning schoolchildren say ‘here sir, take this seat’ on the bus. An attractive woman who might once have coyly glanced your way now looks straight through you. There’s the total inability to ‘do’ technology, when your ten-year-old grandchild could programme the CERN particle accelerator. I used to love dancing but daren’t risk it anymore; I’m terrified that if I thrust my hip out the fucker will stay out. Next time you meet up with your mates for a pint, you’ll spend much of the evening discussing who’s found the most effective remedy for piles. There’s the angst of having the hair that once grew so thickly on your head now sprouting profusely from your nostrils and ears, and from the crack of your arse. I dread the day when I look into a mirror and find that there’s a dewdrop dangling from the end of my nose.
When I was a young man I used to dream of voyages of discovery to exotic, far away places with strange sounding names, but I never had the time or the money. Now I’ve got the time and the money, I’ve lost all inclination, and just want to doze in my sunny spot in the garden. The other night my younger and still nubile wife suggested a trip upstairs for a bit of naughty fun, to which I replied ‘sorry dear, I don’t think I can manage to do both’. Tragically, I was only half joking.  My get up and go has truly got up and gone. The journey from acid rock to acid reflux is indeed one that goes down a long and winding road, and it leads to your door.
Ah fuck it. I think I’ll put ‘Revolver’ on the turntable and open a bottle of decent Rioja. The passage of time cannot diminish all pleasures and wither all things. I’ll close with the observation that… fuck, what WAS I just about to say?

Nominated by Ron Knee

124 thoughts on “Getting Old

  1. Some really great observations on this which make for a great read. Thanks everyone.
    I suppose that getting old has taught me one hugely valuable lesson, best summed up in three words by singer Warren Zevon when he was dying of cancer.
    ‘ENJOY EVERY SANDWICH’.

  2. Brilliant post Ron, perhaps the best I have seen on ISAC as it undoubtedly affects each and every one of us.

    Having recently turned 60 realise that things are not working as well as they used to. Have resisted glasses so far, but envisage the inevitable to be not far away. One of my eyes is great at long distance, and the other short distances, but feel both are deteriorating slightly. Suffered from Labyrinthitis for over 10 years which is a complete bummer, especially in a crowded environment as I have only about 50% hearing in my right ear often cannot hear what the person to the right of me is saying, I just hear noise.

    Usually drink either one or two hot mugs of strong tea a couple of hours before I go to bed, but these days occasionally have to get up to have a piss during the night. Better than having a piss without getting up I find. On top of this always take a pint of water to bed, often drinking half of it during the night. So probably under the circumstances hardly surprising.

    Hair sprouting out of most orifices these days, apart from where I need it the most, “on yer head son”. Very short haircuts these days, and a fringe is just a distant memory.

    Recently had a health check, apparently according to by height, weight and lifestyle choices I have a 4% of suffering a heart attack in the next 5 years, with the very healthy and trim Mrs Stroker a mere 1%. Informed that they are looking at an average of around 20% however some patients this figure is way over 50%.

    Very cowardly have been putting off returning some small pieces of shit in a pre paid envelope to ascertain any presence of bowel cancer yet, but suspect I will get round to it at some point.

    My sons badminton coach (ex England coach) suddenly dropped dead two weeks ago, aged 57 however found out last night that he was a bit if a “wild boy” when younger, and that “his past lifestyle choices- drinker and smoker, had eventually caught up with him”.

    Anyway, a classic post Ron.

    • Cheers willie! And get round to sending that bowel screening back asap, my son. A friend of mine did so and was found to have pre-cancerous stage cells. Early detection prevented things getting really nasty and probably saved him from some very unpleasant times.

  3. Some great posts on here. I guess so many of us are over a certain age. I was 53 last Sunday, and whilst still generally ok (had glaucoma from a young age) I am noticing signs of getting older. Pains in big toe on one foot (possibly start of arthritis?), more difficult to get up from the floor and now my 10 year old son can out sprint me. The worst is that generally women don’t look at you the same as they did 10 years ago. Though thankfully hope was restored when a lady I was chatting to in a bar a couple of weeks ago said that ‘I could stick my tongue in hers whenever I wanted too’.

    Mrs Mitten will be 40 in August and I have told her that it’s the start of the slippery slope into old age.

    • Toe pain could well be gout, in which case arthritis and possibly a touch of psoriasis may well follow. I have all three, I never do anything by halves.

  4. One of the most frustrating aspects of life is having to take shit from people. You start off taking shit from parents, then you start school and find yourself taking shit from teachers, then you start work and find yourself taking shit from bosses.
    After putting up with this for a couple of decades you eventually get to a point where, even if you haven’t become a boss yourself, your age and experience gives you a certain aura of seniority and you are persuaded that your days of taking shit are over. Wrong. Because that’s when you begin having to take shit from youngsters. They’ve just left school to enter the workplace, and they imagine all the older people are going to take the piss out of them, because they realize they’re nobodies, they don’t know anything, they’ve never been anywhere and they’ve never done anything. They’re convinced that they’re going to be humiliated and they’re dreading it. Then they have this brilliant idea – ‘I know, before they get the chance to take the piss out of me, I’ll take the piss out of them!’ And it’s at this point that it dawns on you, you’re always going to have to take shit, in one form or another, till the day you die.

    • That’s in about an hour and a half, best get 3 more wanks in and abuse the neighbours.

  5. Ah fuck I somehow managed to miss this thread earlier, excellent subject matter and brilliant posts…
    I instantly dismiss anybody who comes out with “ life begins at 40” as a deluded cunt but far worse is “ 50 is the new 40” NO it isn’t cunt!!
    I’m 54 and fortunate that I still have most of my hair , although is not dark and strong anymore, it’s more weak grey and appears to be made of cotton, when I can be bothered I buy a bottle of “magic” shampoo which does restore some colour, my eyes still work and I read without glasses, thus destroying the myth that masturbating effects your eyesight!
    Getting older is just a long slow gradual downhill process , it’s not all negative as you have greater appreciation of many things But the physical sides a cunt…
    I know I’m not the man I was even this time last week!! 😂
    Fuck getting older!

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