The McBournie Minute: Old people

At some point, you will die. (How's THAT for starting off your morning on a bright note?) Thanks to modern medicine, the day on which you will die is getting farther and farther away. That is, unless you spend your days chain smoking, emptying every bottle in sight and using pre-owned needles, in which case, you are in the H.O.V. lane to soil slumber.

There is an unfortunate side effect of this seemingly good news: there are more old people around these days. People are living nearly as long today as they were in the book of Genesis (reference!). It's true, folks just don't have the common decency to kick the oxygen habit the way they used to. You know how long the average lifespan was when FDR introduced Social Security? Around 65, the same age you were allowed to retire and live off the government. FDR was a genius, he pushed through Congress something that sounded great, while in reality it allowed senior citizens to put their pickaxes down and step out of the coal mines, so they could enjoy their last days--both of them.

This is why retirement worked so well. Those freeloading old people were considerate enough to kick the oxygen habit after a few years on the taxpayers' dime (later, due to inflation and a weak dollar, became the taxpayers' $20).

But today, we see old people living well past their 40s, 50s, 60s, well into their eighth and ninth decades of existence. In most cases, they are free to enjoy a life of semi-coherency, holding up traffic on the highway, defending their sacred lawns from invading whipper-snappers and all the diapers the government can afford. Some are even jumping out of planes for no good reason. This needs to be stopped, folks. We need to demand our old people stop taking care of themselves, and their caretakers do the same.

Move over, gramps. Or at least, get a job, you bum.