Hats Off to the Elderly
Several years ago, I was working for a Brisbane radio station. We had been broadcasting from the Showgrounds and mingling with happy visitors to the Ekka (an exhibition of giant bulls, and scones made by the CWA). As we were leaving, a number of old people were being wheeled off with their carers in a van. My co-host, a very friendly man, said hello, and eagerly obliged when asked for an autograph and photo. He then focused on one very old lady sitting in her wheelchair and asked her her name.
Before the old lady could answer, her carer piped up and said, ‘Her name is Daisy.’ My colleague said, ‘Daisy? Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…’ and launched into an excruciating version of ‘A Bicycle Built for Two’. The whole song. With actions. That was bad. But it got worse. As he began to sing his song, he took the large straw hat from Daisy’s head, put it on his own head, and kind of danced around the wheelchair-bound old people, skipping and leaping. Was he trying to emphasise his agility? The oldies were powerless to stop the performance. It was dreadful.
When my colleague had finished delighting his slack-jawed fans, he tossed the hat back to the carers and jumped in our logo-covered four-wheel drive, quite thrilled with himself and the love he’d given. But I couldn’t look at him. I kept looking back at poor old Daisy, wondering if at some point she had wanted to say, ‘Give me back my hat, you fuckwit. I came for the bulls’ pizzles and the fairy floss. Not some clapped-out old radio star prancing about, pretending he wanted to take me on a bike somewhere.’
Who was Daisy before she ended up in that nursing home, being treated like a prop in a geriatric film clip? Was she a nurse, a scientist, a poet, a teacher, a housewife who could get three meals out of one chicken? I realised that even if she’d been none of those things, even if her brain were the size of a walnut and weighed less than a tea bag, she should have been free to keep her hat on her head. That’s merely what her dignity demanded.
But old people all get lumped in together and there are some who think it’s charming to acknowledge them in any way. Butchers, bakers, radio hosts love to throw a saucy semi-flirtatious line at old women and act as though they have done her the HUGEST favour. ‘Hey, look at me being nice to the old chick. Hey? Did you see me? I’m a hell of a guy.’ And now, even at the tender age of forty, it has started happening to me.
I had to get drugs from the chemist the other day. I was really sick with tonsillitis. My GP had given me two shots of penicillin in the arse and I was getting yet more antibiotics. My chemist – we’ll call him Don, because that’s his name – is quite fond of me. Or rather, he is fond of the fact that I worked in radio and was sometimes on the telly. He listens to the station I used to work for and, when I was still with that station (I got sacked in April), loved to reprise comments I had made on air. It was a bit uncomfortable, but at least he wasn’t discussing the worm tablets and nit treatments I had invariably come to buy.
That day, Don saw me walk in. I looked like shit. I felt like shit. I couldn’t swallow or speak, or think of anything but getting back to bed. Don was up on his platform, overcoming his inferiority complex about not being a doctor. ‘Good morning, young lady, and how can I help you today?’
I handed him the script and a thin smile.
‘Hey, what happened to you?’
I don’t know what he means. Does he mean, what happened to make me sick, or what happened to me over the course of my life? I think he wants to know why I got sacked. ‘I don’t know. Life happened.’ I throw him another thin smile, imploring him with my eyes not to speak to me again. I wander off and start fingering the enema kits.
Don calls me over. ‘Young lady, George. Young lady, your script is ready.’
I head to the counter, where Don teases me with my life-saving drugs, refusing to hand them over until he has finished what he wants to say. ‘Anyway, I am sad you are not there anymore.’ I say thanks and feel a softening towards him. ‘Yeah, because I have some really funny stories for you that you could use on the radio.’ I think to myself, But I don’t have a job on the radio and, even if I did, I seriously doubt you could give me anything to take on air, except for some over-priced Butter-Menthols.
Don bids me farewell: ‘OK then, beautiful lady. Go and enjoy the beautiful day. The perfect day for a perfect beauty.’
He was laying it on thick but this was helping me feel a bit better. I caught my reflection and thought that perhaps I didn’t look too bad. I still have cheekbones. I’m a bit fat, but maybe that extra plumpness gives me a youthful glow. Yes, in fact I am in pretty good nick, all things considered. I was walking a little taller and, if not strutting, at least not shuffling, until the next customer arrived. She was eighty-five, on a walking frame, and wearing burgundy tracksuit pants, ugg boots, a black cardigan and … a Collingwood beanie.
From the back of the shop, Don called: ‘Good morning, young lady. How are you, my beauty? A beautiful day for a beautiful young Collingwood supporter to visit her favourite chemist.’
I hopped back into bed, thinking that, one day, Don will be old and unemployed. It made me feel better.
George McEncroe is a Melbourne-based writer, comedian and broadcaster, who occasionally pops up on ‘Spicks and Specks’.
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