I'll give you old and then some

So yesterday I got a phone call from a Retirement Village inviting me to come along to one of their High Teas.

"For what? Free Food?" I asked.

"Well", she said, "we thought you might be interested in what we have to offer with a view to seeing if our lifestyle is right for you."

NO sniggering please, it was crushing enough as it was.

I hung up.

Right for me!!!!!!  An old people's home?

My mirror tells me I'm middleaged but aren’t these places for people who are long retired? For geriatrics who have given up on life?

I am not that old, not retired and not even a grandmother yet, give me a break!

No, I did not laugh simply because I must be getting sensitive to the fact that now when I am finally getting my head together my body is breaking down. How do they happen to know that?

Either my daughter did actually read my last post and is playing a practical joke or someone is doing some very long term marketing.

I would like to let it to be known that I will not be considering one of these places for at least another 40 years.

Besides, I come from a family of hard nosed, really old people. Most of you met my father on here. Well this week I also shared a story about his mother with a couple of very dear bloggers who are fighting cancer. My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer at 40, and bluntly told to go home and die. Fifty years later she was still mowing her own lawns. I have her firmly in my sights.

How can I be over the hill when I haven’t even reached the top yet. I'm still climbing, albeit a little more breathlessly with each passing year, but still trekking and looking upwards.

It’s bad enough that I am getting all these letters from government agencies strongly encouraging me to make appointments for medical tests that a woman 'of my age' needs (its essential I know, but just another reminder of the creeping years).

It must be true what they say, from your late 40s up the only names going in your little black book seem to end in MD.

However, something I've also noticed in recent times is that my personal details are getting sold to others so they can annoy the hell out of me trying to sell their wares. The ageing population is one hell of a market just remember that.

Only last week I got a call from a health fund trying to sell me something which strangely co-incided with the fact that I had just made an appointment with a new doctor two days before. I am very careful about giving out my mobile number so I knew immediately how they got my number.

Surely this is illegal? I mean there was no small print anywhere on the new patient form. I did not have to tick a box that said, I give permission for you to sell and make money off my personal details.

Fortunately, something rage age has done for me is that it's given me the balls to fight back. I rang the practice manager and said that if they are going to make any money off me then I want 'my cut'. She coughed and spluttered but didn’t deny it either.

I told her I would no longer be going to their medical practice as the next thing I know I would be finding my sexy x-rays plastered all over the internet. And while I accept we have to focus on inner beauty the older we get, I am not sure I would be making the same kind of fortune Kim Kardashian did when her nude pictures were uploaded for all to see. The manager didn’t laugh. Clearly you don't acquire a sense of humor until you are 45 at least.

Now I don’t know when old age, let alone middle age starts and when it ends but I think it all happens largely in our heads (well if you choose to ignore a few annoying symptoms).

I am just going through another stage in life, but IT’S DEFINITELY NOT OLD AGE. YET. Ask me again in another 40 years.
_____________________________________________________________________

I did the following cartoons for a friend's birthday. (They are my originals - I did them with the Windows Paint program regardless of the fact that it looks like a 5 yr old did them)

If any of the following cartoons apply to you, well I have the phone number of a very nice retirement village, just saying....

You know you're getting old when ......

(click on image to enlarge it if you are way too old to read the small print)