I can't wrap my head around taunting old people... because they're old! What sense does that make? We're where they're going

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils maslivend@sbcglobal.net

There’s a truly ridiculous movie advertisement that comes uninvited on my screen when I’m in the middle of something I’ve chosen. See, you may not know it, though if you know me, it goes without saying, you cannot but know that I’m a grouchy soul. When I watched Sesame Street with my kids, Oscar the Grouch was one of my favorite characters.

Oscar, with his unattractive self, didn’t play around! If something rubbed him the wrong way – as ‘most everything did – he didn’t just swallow it to let it rile him the whole night through. He charged it right then and there, and, since the other characters, being controlled by “real people,” couldn’t just storm off with their feelings hurt, he misbehaved however, whenever, and for as long as he wanted!

Something flashed across my television screen a week or so ago, just like it’s done previously. I hear stuff, even though I usually don’t get a chance to see what’s going on. Being a “daughter-diagnosed ADD” (doing 100 things while assigned one thing), I’m usually doing something else that requires at least 32% attention. So, I miss stuff.

The first time my ear caught a steal of the offensive comment, I stopped what I was doing just long enough to raise my eyes a bit above my glasses and flatten my “lipline” just a tad so that the corners of my mouth went down a degree or so. Though you may not pay attention to it when you do it, you certainly recognize it on somebody else’s face – believe me, other folks notice! That tiny movement was to me that day a sort of punctuation mark. Now you knew grammar would find its way in here! Anyway, it was a sort of “marker,” a physical notation to return to this the next time it happened.

Well, a few days later, the commercial called out to me again. It was an ad about an upcoming – or currently playing – show. All activity stopped for a second to ensure that watchers – I wasn’t one, and had no intention of being one – caught a little brazen-slip-of-a-woman “diss” an older woman.

Now, don’t ask me what the older woman had done or said – I don’t have a clue – but the younger “thang” wasted no time in “gittin’ her tol’,” ending with what her tiny brain thought was the ultimate putdown! She slung the words, “wit yo ol’ self” at her with as much venom as her dehydrated soul could come up with!

Boy! I could have wrung her little, useless bubble of a head clean off its roosting place – just as well that she was protected by a TV screen. She wouldn’t have missed it, anyway! The nerve of that little wench! (I know… the movie-maker made her do it, but I could tell she absolutely loved it!)

Maybe I’m just dumb, thick-brained, but I can’t wrap my head around taunting old people… because they’re old! What sense does that make? We’re where they’re going… like on a train, the next stop is old and everybody on it is going to that place! Somebody please tell’em: “You’ll disembark there! Unless you get off early!”

Ol’ folks, we have our work cut out for us. We must… we have to educate the young’uns: “Old.” Comes. From. Living! It’s not a disease… a punishment for something you’ve done wrong! It’s not like your parent saying, “Naw, you can’t have that. You’ve been bad!”

The road ahead? Teach the youngsters that life is not to be scorned… It’s to be treasured, to be cherished. Longevity is a gift, an extension, to be shared with others, kinda like a plug-in, or a loaner… so others can enjoy what you now… or have already experienced.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it…

Story Posted:09/16/2018