Hospice

By the time that this month is over. I will be 70 years old. And I have been cripled the whole time. Which will make me about 400 ln cripple years. So all bets are off. I did none of the medical intervention that the doctors said I should do when I was a wee criplet. But even if I had done them all, none of those doctors would’ve predicted that I would last this long.. Those doctors would’ve had me play the hospice game. They thought that all cripples like me could aspire to was to just be comfortable until we die. They thought that to push us to aspire to anything higher than that was to be mean and cruel to us by rubbing our noses in our crippledness. I’m lucky that I have been pretty healthy. I still have my tonsils and my appendix and I’ve never had a cavity, But the other part of it was that my mother didn’t encourage me to play the hospice game. She let me aspire to more than that because she didn’t know any better. That’s what mothers are supposed to do. That’s their job. But I’m afraid that once I cross the bridge into 70 I’ll be under a lot of pressure to play the hospice game again. Because it seems that a lot of people under 70 think that all people over 70 can aspire to is to just be comfortable until we die. We aren’t a part of any coveted demographic anymore. Advertisers don’t try to sell us anything, except adult diapers, reverse mortgages and life insurance that can pay for our funerals. (They don’t advertise coffins on TV yet.) When I see old people on television, it kind of gives me the creeps because even though I am of their generation, I don't feel like I have anything else in common with them. They are either 1) playing the hospice game or 2) trying to, “Live each day to the fullest.” When I hear that, it makes me feel like I have to wrestle an alligator every day so that no one can accuse me of not trying to “live each day to the fullest.” Or maybe that’s just how younger people think old people are supposed to be. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH