Ever put your keys in the fridge while setting the butter on your hall table? How about putting on shoes of two different styles on your feet? How often do you get the grandkids names mixed up? If all of these things sound familiar, there is a name for it. We of a certain time in our lives call it AGING.
As aggravating as all of this can be, try being an author who cannot remember the next word she wants to write. Or the next thought that seemed so clear a few seconds ago. That happens to me on a regular basis and yet I have discovered some truly lovely things about getting older.
For instance, who cares what other people think if I wear my muumuu nightie outside to get the mail? I can now go to animation movies without a child in tow and everyone just smiles sweetly as I toddle along the aisle. I am now considered ‘eccentric’ which is another term for nutty as a loon. Speaking of movies, I can get in for less because evidently it is cheaper to watch a movie with your eyes half covered with cataracts. They call it the Senior Discount.
About those Senior Discounts, did you know most stores have one day of the week when they offer them to us old dolls over sixty? We can rack up ten to twenty percent off just about anything. The one drawback is managing to find two stores in the mall discounting on the same day. I figure if I go to each one, I have to go every day of the week, use ridiculous amounts of gas and end up owing more than if the items were not on sale.
However, older often means wiser, and that comes in very handy with my little community of widow women. Each of us picks a day of the week to attack a store with lists in hand from our neighbors. That way we all get the discounts, individually use less gas and break the discount code. We also go loaded with every coupon available in papers and online. Only two of us have computers and printers, so we all pitch in for paper to print the coupons.
As single women we find buying meats to be difficult unless we want to eat the same meal several times in one week. Again, we solved the case by making a list of meats we all like, buying them in bulk and dividing them up into meal-sized quantities. Not only does it solve the cook big problem, it is a lot of fun getting together for meat separation day.
We do have to be careful to keep calendars for the simple reason at the beginning of this article…we forget a lot more often than when we were younger. We also call each other as reminders. One member of our savings club uses erasable pens to write big notes on her bathroom mirror. It may not be pretty, but it works!
Of course, when I get the groceries home, first I have to clean the refrigerator and remove the keys, the cell phone, and, at least once, the dog leash. I was thrilled that the dog was not still attached.