How to be Old and Silly
SUCCESSFULLY
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PROLOGUE

“Ridiculous !” I said firmly: “yer off yer face !!” – there you go: nipped in the bud.

I added a little gilding to the lily: “I mean – another one ?! No way !! – I only ever had that single story in my head.”

Silence. A vague gazing out the window.

“And it wasn’t exactly a best-seller ..” I pursued, defensively (and accurately); “in fact, this year I’m not even getting a brass razoo for library usage !”

My interlocutor came back to life: “All the more reason for you to write another one.”

I sighed dramatically, and cast about for something sensible.

“It’s all very well saying that people would want to read about how to manage getting old,” I said, “but honestly – how many books about that have been written alrea—”

“Find a way to write about it differently then ! How about with humour ? Are there any out there written from experience but with humour ?”

And, with glee: “Actually, how many oldies could even write a publishable book, for starters ?”

“Probably thousands” I muttered darkly.

“Rubbish.”

“Well, lots ..”

More silence. The cumulous clouds of pressure coming together under the ceiling began to multiply, showing ominous signs of turning into the eye of a hurricane.

I sighed again. This time my shoulders were bowed.

“Oh alRIGHT ! I’ll tell you what .. I’ll give it some thought and see if I can come up with any ideas – or maybe some kind of storyline, OK ?”

Slow nod and the conversation was over.

How in the names of all the gods did I manage to let myself be rolled like that ?!

********************

It was an amazing noise.

There we all were in the first floor salon of my very swish hairdresser – I will admit, it was only my second time but I am determined to be able to afford them ! – and it sounded as if everyone was having the most marvellous time. The sound track made me laugh with joy, that babble of voices and laughter and callings-out, all to the background of a music tape someone had dubbed. Hairdressers are delightful – well, this lot is: they make you feel as if you’re visiting rather than obtaining a paid service. And I do assure you that the service is EXCELLENT !

I was sitting at a big table, crocheting while my now extremely short hair (had just had a #4 buzzcut) was getting paler by the moment, in the room that has four basins for washing and tricking up colour. Couldn’t help remarking on how four totally unalike women looked almost identical when lying back with their heads in the basins and their eyes closed in bliss ..

The volume ratcheted up a bit as a late-comer from the staff arrived to general insults and calumny: you get to know them all, not just the ones who actually work on you. (And today I turned out to be quite hard work; as the top back part of my hair – the double crown – was refusing to be bleached. If I remember at all, it took the original 40′ and about four or five more lots of 10′ ! I am happy to say that the end result is, she said modestly, terrific.)

The music was pulsing in the background as a track – and in fact this side of the tape – neared the end; and shortly it stopped. One of those sudden lulls in the vocal row happened at exactly that moment; and not at all loudly but because of the unexpected quiet seemingly like a thunderclap, someone farted.

O.M.G. !

A second or two of frozen silence.

Then someone giggled. And then another person. And within a matter of seconds the entire floor was in uproar ! I honestly doubt that the perpetrator of The Ghastly Deed was ever identified, and nobody cared — it was simply hilarious.    🙂

I’ve often wondered what it is about farts that makes them so funny .. I think it’s because they’re kind of frowned on but only a wee bit naughty – like, finger-waggingly wicked and not even worth a cross word. Depending, of course .. [grin]

As the Volvo finally made it ’round the corner she was able to step off the kerb and walk over the roundabout leg, calling a couple of thoughts after it.

Such a day ! – and that nice bloke at the clothing alterations place had taken up the cheap jeans while she waited .. which was just as well, as she’d forgotten to collect the old ones when she left the flat. She blithely stepped up onto the next block of the footpath, a virtuous walking person.

Approaching the next roundabout (Essendon is rife with ’em) she saw a man appear on the left quadrant, fair way away; and as he half-turned to see her, he smile hugely and waved, immediately loudly starting up what was obviously meant to be a conversation but that couldn’t yet be discerned.

“Fuck me !” she said to herself: “do I know this bloke ? – I do not .. At least, I believe I do not ..” and she interrogated her mental gallery of acquaintances. “Oh, hang on !” – as he grew ever nearer – “it’s that fellow from the fresh market – the unfortunate bastard I practise my Italian on !”, and she waved back. “Giorno !” she cried gaily; “come stai ? Fa meraviglioso, no ?” happy in the knowledge that such basic stuff couldn’t be wrong.

They were getting closer, but the very imperfect hearing in her left ear had still not allowed her to make out anything he was saying, so she continued. “Perché sei qui ? – abiti vicino ?” (not nearly so confident, but who gives a shit ?!) and by now they were close enough to make each other’s features out.

Not the bloke from the fresh market. Not anyone she knew.

His face had fallen. “You’re not who I thought you were !” he said accusingly; “for heaven’s sake, why were you talking to me ?” A thought .. “And you were talking IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE !”

Deeply offended, he stalked off in high dudgeon.

She stood there dumbstruck for a moment, then wickedly called after him, vowels flattened, “Whaddya mean, a foreign language ?! – are you quite MAD ?” and watched him stop and turn back for a moment, his face a picture. “Jeez, mate !” she expostulated, throwing her hands in the air.

Then, gleeful, she continued on in her own direction. Very satisfying.

 

The silence within the room lengthened. Outside, however, could still be heard the infuriating sound of the laundromat’s dryers, rhythmically whining their horrid metallic row.

“Nano-particles ..” she said.

The cat curled tightly between her knees on the recliner chair ignored this pronouncement and merely wrapped his tail more securely around himself. He was used to such utterances and had learned never to be surprised.

She’d just finished re-crocheting all the acrylic yarn already used once this-morning and was making (again) the back of a sweater, this time ten stitches wider than the one she’d been working on for some hours, so the concept was relevant: acrylic yarn is full of ’em.

“I might actually have some real wool !” she told the cat, guiltily; “remember that cardigan I started to knit ? – it’s in the hallway drawers ..” and she put the huge acrylic yarn cake onto the side table, together with the crocheted piece, failing to see that the thread was caught around one of the cat’s back feet. At the same time as she rose she gently pushed him off her lap and, too late !, saw the problem.

It was a shitfight. The enormous yarn cake went flying and she stupidly tried to catch it, not wanting to have to untangle the equivalent of eight balls of yarn; her forward leap meant that the flap of the recliner didn’t shut but opened up and caught the back of her shins punishingly. With loud imprecations she was flung at the couch on the other side of the little room and grabbed at it to stop her fall, managing only to yank all the cushions off and onto her head as she hit the floor.

The cat, meanwhile, had leaped frantically sideways out of her path and onto his climbing tree, knocking it over so that it fell behind her – fitting neatly between her slippers and the open recliner. He landed on her bum, claws out for support, then leaped off and raced for cover in the bedroom: he had a feeling she was not going to be happy ..

She lay there for a bit, shaken by the act of falling. Tons of stuff around for her to heave herself up by. The dryers just went on grinding out their hideous song from below.

“So,” she said to no-one, “what’s my take on THAT ?!”

A couple of seconds of thought, and then she heaved herself up, shedding cushions and kicking the cat-tree away.

Happily she was only bruised if you didn’t count the claw-marks on her arse. Unhappily the acrylic yarn cake was spread everywhere.

“Easy,” she finished: “forget being eco-minded.”

It seems more than slightly egocentric to post about it; but I actually have a question to put to anyone out there who’s written more than once ..

Q: How hard is it ?I don’t want to start out with fanfare and champagne and then pathetically back away because it was too demanding.

So somehow I have to find out about going through the writing process a second time.

As to what .. I’m only capable of writing in the first person; and fiction is something I couldn’t write to save my life.  It would be, were I to get stuck in and Nike, entitled “How to Grow Old and Silly Successfully” – a topic with which I have a very close relationship ..

It would be instances of my more idiotic performances in Life, and how their various ‘audiences’ responded. In my own writing style, of course ..

Does it sound the faintest bit amusing ?

ATLMD was written from a vastly different point of view; but it did contain a fair bit of humour, as anyone who’s read it will (jesus I hope so !!) attest.

So. How hard is it to write a second magnum opus, anyone ?