Being, (I can scarcely say this), a near-elderly person , (gag me with my false teeth), if I were speaking to another geezer, and if that person were here in the Allegro Campground in Red Bay, in Alabama, I would have to do two things.

First, I would have to talk VERY LOUD because in this age group we’re all deaf and none of us (well, them, not me) are listening to each other, and besides that, talking loud seems something of the badge of membership amongst this age group, at least around here in this RV Park. In fact, here, the older you are, the louder you are allowed to shout, until among the truly aged…say like Benjamin-Button- the din is deafining. If you are very old and disabled, you have a license to kill – or at least to maim eardrums.

The hands-down all-time winner, no question, in this ersatz competition is a fat red-haired only-semi-elderly gent on a gaudy mobility scooter. Irene swears he dies his hair, it’s actually such a strange orange color, and if he is, he did it to match his scooter, which wouldn’t surprise me as  little does when it comes to matters of taste among the old.

This particular guy -we’ll call him Rowdy, ‘cuz he looks like somebody who would call HIMSELF Rowdy because he thinks that’s a cool name, talks so loudly that it vibrates the plates in our kitchen cabinet when he’s across the street. Really. Don’t listen to Irene about this, I swear it’s true.  Interestingly, although Rowdy talks louder than the south end of a north-bound tandem-axle Allegro Bus, he does it seemingly without conveying any information at all.  He may have come close once. I did hear him say something about doing his Renaisance thing at some kind of a Renaisance fair recently, and I can only infer that this “thing” of his had something to do with his imitating Friar Tuck as he looks like him, especially if FT was orange-haired and piloting an equally orange mobility scooter, all in the name of salvation, I suppose. Also the good Friar Rowdy’s personal repetition factor…a standard I made up recently measuring how many times an elderly speaker will repeat almost exactly, (within 10%), the same ten words (or more) IN THE SAME ORDER within one minute…is also very high and, again, I would give this particular contestent somewhere near a 10,  10 being if not perfect at least perfectly miserable to listen to, and I actually get so annoyed I find myself waiting for the next repetition so that I can self-flagellate even more in this perpetual three-step of annoyance, self-disgust and more annoyance. Plus, if I just went out and said “YOU! UGLY GUY ON THE VERY UGLY SCOOTER! I’M TRYING TO WATCH TELEVISION AND MY VOLUME CONTROL WON’T GO LOUD ENOUGH TO DROWN YOU OUT! SHUTTTTUUPPP!” I would feel momentarily fantastic and then miserable for two days. How could I yell at a crippled guy? And he probably got that way defending his country in the Spanish-American War or some such and here I am, yelling at a cripple AND an old guy AND a veteran…BAAAAAD ME! I swear, I can’t win.

But back to the title.

The second thing I would have to do here, talking to some other geezer and besides just talking loud,  is to avoid talking health care. Talk about a sensitive subject back here, and it turns out that racism is more of a factor here than I thought, especially about this subject, although why that should be I don’t know. Once the subject has turned to health care of late, a number of cute little comments have been trolled out indicating that, if Obama was white, this would still be terrible because Demos are evil, but at least we could live with it, but now all the whites are gonna be deprived of health care and “everyone else” will get for-free health care. Drives me crazy, crazy, crazy….nobody here has even looked at the proposed legislation, nobody cares what reality is, they just blather on, and on, and on, and loud, too….did I mention the loud part?

Since I’m asking and you’re answering, have you ever head the story about the geezer complaining at the customer service desk of the local department store? After carefully listening, the customer service agent queries the geezer as follows:  “So, sir, let’s say we give you your money back. We also give you a new, improved product for free. We shoot the manager. And then we close the store. Would that be satisfactory?”

And THAT’S discussing health care in the Allegro Campground, in Red Bay, in Alabama, where nobody listens, and even if they did, they couldn’t hear you anyway.