..with fewer choices
May 2, 2008 (Friday)
The President said he wants to give senior citizens more choices when it comes to health care, etc. Speaking just for myself, I reply, “Mr. President, the last thing I want is more choices; they are very confusing to me, and the older I get, the more confusing they are.” I liked it better when my choice was Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry. I liked it better when the phone company was Ma Bell, period. I liked it better when there were only a few brands of automobiles, and not many styles. In short, I have become a full-blown, bona fide, died-in-the wool, stuck-in-the-mud, drowning in nostalgia, confused old coot.
I bought a digital camera this week. I hurriedly removed it from the box, and hastily tried to take a picture. Folks, this ain’t no Brownie box camera. I couldn’t tell heads from tails, so I got the book (one of about six that came with it) and tried to read it. Ugh! I quickly discovered that I had grabbed the “advanced” manual and that I needed to read the “basic” manual. Well, it’s complicated, too, but somewhat understandable. So, I managed finally, after some effort, to take a simple picture. I think I’m gonna like this camera, because it does everything except make coffee, but I have to learn more about it. I showed it to my sister, a photographer, and although she had never seen that model before, showed me about twenty things about it I didn’t know it could do. It may take me a long time, but I’ll eventually learn how to work it.
I stopped at James Coney Island for lunch after my purchase, and was faced with more choices as I looked up at the displays of the many different menus. So I said to the friendly young lady behind the counter, “All those choices are confusing to me, please just give me something to eat.” She smiled and asked, “Would you like a Number One?” “Yes,” I replied, “that sounds good to me.” I told her I used to buy Coney Islands a lot when I was a kid. She said, as she told me the price was $6.38, that they had gone up in price since then. “I bet you paid just twenty-five cents,” she laughed. “Yep, you’re right,” sez I. But when I got to the table with my food, I got to thinking about what those hot dogs cost back in 1945, and I’m pretty sure they were fifteen cents.
What I need is a senior-citizen-friendly town, with vanilla ice cream, plain old hamburgers, an old car to drive, and a simple Medicare card. Eh? What’s that you say? Cain’t hear ye – left my glasses somewhere.