Wednesday, September 8, 2010

On Being a Senior Citizen

If we had actually bought tickets for the movies instead of using free passes (thanks again, Jennifer!) I could have gotten in at the senior citizen 55 and over price of just $7.00 instead of the $10.50 general admission price. $10.50 to see a movie? Geez. And then you've got to pay $3.00 for a coke and probably about $20.00 for your popcorn, which we didn't buy. Because when you are getting into the movies for free it makes you extra frugal about any money that you might have in your pocket.

So far that's about the only advantage to being a senior citizen that I have found. The rest of the things that happen when you become a senior citizen aren't quite so much fun.

Like the things that happen with your digestive system. Is it because your body is giving back all the abuse you have done to it over the years what with eating too much junk food or drinking too much beer or putting too much salsa on your chips? I can't eat anything with garlic in it anymore, green or red peppers cause a field day in my belly of rumblings and bubblings, if I don't drink my metamucil each night and eat wheat toast each morning then I'll be really really sorry, and indigestion, something I never had to worry much about, is becoming a daily occurrence.

The other night our neighbor was barbecuing and saved us some tri-tip and roasted potatoes. Tri-tip is just meat, right, and potatoes are just potatoes, but there must have been some major garlic somewhere in the mix because the rest of the evening was just miserable. Maalox tablets were chewed to little relief because while Keith swears by the stuff, it never seems to do a whole lot for me except leave that chalky taste in my mouth so I go brush my teeth right after chewing them up.

Then last night I made some pork chops and decided to cook up a box of Suddenly Salad, and yeah, I know that Suddenly Salad is not exactly fine cuisine and all that, but it was only $1.00 a box and we bought it mainly to have leftovers to put in Keith's lunchbox for something cold to eat on a hot day.

I am never going to buy Suddenly Salad again even at $1.00 a box, because something in the ranch/bacon dried dressing seasoning packet that you mix up with mayo didn't agree with my senior citizen stomach and again I was MISERABLE. I tried some Rolaids that were hiding in Keith's lunchbox and while they tasted even worse than the Maalox, they did seem to work a little better.

Oh, and we threw away the leftover Suddenly Salad because even Keith's not quite a senior citizen stomach was not happy last night either.

Another thing I've noticed about being a senior citizen is how many of us use our age as an excuse to be huge pains in the a$$es. Like that woman that was tazed by the police officer after a traffic stop, if you remember that one. How you could have missed it I don't know since the video was all over the internet and on the news and all, but anyway, cantankerous, rude, obnoxious woman arguing with the officer and the whole time yelling about how she is 73 and you can't treat a 73 year old woman like that until he finally tazed her so she'd just shut the hell up already.

I'm going to start going around shoving people out of my way and cutting in lines and yelling at salesclerks and shaking my fist at the world, the whole time yelling I'M 55 DAMMIT AND YOU CAN'T TREAT ME LIKE THAT!

And the thing I hate most about us senior citizens is when we go around saying things like 'It's my birthday today and I'm 55 years YOUNG.'

Cringe. Every. Time.

1 comment:

CapriciousCat said...

When you get heartburn, try taking a couple of calcium tablets instead of the Tums. So far, they work for me. I've had moderate success with lemon juice and hot water. Also good old-fashioned baking soda in water is supposed to work really well--but only if you don't have high blood pressure and have to watch your sodium intake.

I always used to pride myself on my "cast iron stomach", which I inherited from my father, who could eat ANYTHING. Well, it's not cast iron anymore... I LOVE garlic, but lately it's been biting me back whenever I have it. I hate getting older. I feel like my body's started to betray me.