Most of us in the senior reading room of the club would describe ourselves as in a pre-stroke state, more or less waiting around for "the Big One." We can observe the post-stroke types sitting by the curtains singing Row Your Boat while wearing bibs. If that does not send a shiver down one's spine, I am not sure what would.
Time is up, my friends, and we live to regret all that wasted time from our misspent youth. While not there yet, we are in a patch of life where we break wind involuntarily - no, these things must be spoken of.
From our group, particularly after lunch, one hears such exclamations after a small explosion as "Er, sorry," or "I am not a well man" or "It is the damned fish" and from one dear lady, "Was that me?" But this is life within our group and, I can assure you, others as well.
Often we don't mention the obvious after a noisome "bang" from a mem, merely shifting position in our comfy wingback chairs. It is a sophistication of manners at its best.
My social set has made terms such as aneurism, embolism, angina, diverticulitis and "mad as the March hare" part of normal conversation when we are not reading our newspapers. We all know someone going through one or two of these problems, and therefore it is terribly interesting for us all, if only in a sort of ghoulish way.
Mrs. Hynde-Quarters appears to be morbidly concerned about the use of embalming fluid by the undertaking community, so much so that she stalks the one mem from that business, Mr. Charles (Chilly) Box.
A calmer fellow you will never meet. He often gently takes our hands while explaining the need for his "platinum option" funeral while there is still cash in the bank and the children have not yet turned against you.
He and his like live in fear of "power of attorney" held by the family, which generally means a funeral consisting of either a packing crate or a green garbage bag with no accompanying lunch.
He finds these times we live in a disgrace, involving a great lowering of standards. No doubt.
Mrs. Hynde-Quarters serves as a glaring example of a senior's outlandish curiosity regarding her exit from this life. It is ill-conceived and shows a lack of breeding, the reading room decided.
It cheers many of us that if we make the long journey into old age, a wet blanket of boredom envelops us, meaning we want to get it over with. There is no unseemly clinging to the leg of the dining room table, more of a charge to the precipice with an uplifting "Tally-ho!"
I don't mean the sort of boredom one feels when one is teenaging about the house trailed by one's mother complaining about the state of one's filthy room, more along the lines of sagging spiritually, sensing one has seen it all before, only it was more frothy and fun that earlier time. It is a surreal moment to be sure, but there is a sense that one's time is past and one has become nothing more than a burden. There is no brio left in the tank.
Spellbinding has never been my middle name. A number of teachers began to fear for their reason because I was an inordinately stupid boy, much preferring to gaze from the window entranced by a butterfly than to come to grips with Pythagorus. I imagine several of these dedicated men must have leapt from their mortal coils thinking: "This is better than instructing Smythe-Brown." For that I apologize, but I still like butterflies.
I was not bored then, in spite of what they thought, and I am not aware today that I am terrifically tedious to anyone apart from my wife, so to my mind the club life is for me, personal noise and all. [email protected] Twitter: @TheYYJMajor
