Geezer Guff

If you’re a male geezer returning to the dating world, you need to have money, be a great dancer, and, most importantly, you have to know what to say and not to say. I can’t teach you how to get rich or dance, but here are a few suggestions for what you should not be talking about on a date.

1. Your Age

The fact that you’re breathing is usually a positive sign for any widow over the age of 60. You don’t need to confuse the issue with a number. If you are dating a woman from 40 to 60 years old, she may be wondering about your age because she wants to know how many years you have left before she has to start sitting around the hospital waiting room to find out if you’ve survived your latest major surgery. The trick here is to not focus on your age, but how often you go to the gym. A bit of rock climbing skill or bungee jumping experience would also be good to mention. If you’ve jumped out of a plane and survived, all the better. If the woman you’re dating is under 40, avoid mentioning age as long as possible, because if the number is over the age of her father you will be going home alone.

2. Illness

Keep the illnesses to only those for which a pill can be popped or a liquid be swallowed. Attach any illness you’ve had to health or money. For example, you got the flu because you were running a marathon in the rain. Or your migraine was caused by deciding when to make your next large purchase of Google stock. Any illness related to a hospital should be avoided. Don’t lie about it, but if you have to mention it, focus on how quickly you recovered because of your vim and vigor.

3. Children and Grandchildren

You want to emphasize how well your children turned out. You needn’t mention the fact that it was your deceased wife or ex that did all the work. You did contribute half the genes, after all. As for grandchildren, be sure to tell about the time you took care of them, generously treated them to all sorts of goodies, and then sent them home to their mother and father. You’ll seem caring but not clutching. On the other hand, very few women will find you attractive if your unmarried child and grandchild are still living with you. They have probably been there and done that and have no desire to do it again with you.

4. Sex

If you would like to have some, I’d suggest you don’t mention the word. Don’t be one of those senior citizens from the 50s who think that paying for a steak dinner is essentially paying for sex. If you want to get her into bed, you’re going to have to do some modern wooing which includes listening and talking to her. Senior men are not known for these skills, but they can be learned. Watch some old Cary Grant movies.

5. Marriage

If you’re a widower, do not spend a lot of time discussing your dead wife. It’s depressing for you and intimidating for your date. She’ll want to know you grieved but have not brought an urn full of ashes to dinner.

If you’ve never been married, you better have a few good “I was left at the alter” stories or your date will definitely believe you’re gay.

If you’re currently married, you should avoid mentioning it. To be honest, you should also avoid dating, you dirty old man.

Filed under: General> Love Tags: Tags: avoid dating, date, dating, dating a woman, dating world, dirty old man, geezer, humor, never been married, satire, senior, senior citizen, senior men, widower by geezerbill Date 26 January, 2012
No comments »

When geezers are thinking about where to live in retirement, there is often talk of sunshine and heat, specifically Florida and Arizona. Often referred to as God’s waiting rooms, both these sun-drenched states have a high proportion of seniors enjoying their golden years.

But it’s time for change. I’m proposing that we start thinking about retirement living with less sun and more cold. And when it comes to cold retirement living, who can compete with the Flickertail state, North Dakota? You may be thinking Alaska, but that state is so far away you have to go through another country to get there.

No, if you want retirement living in the lower 48, NDs your answer. Let’s compare.

Natural Resources

Florida has the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, so you’re never far from water. Unfortunately, as global warming raises the levels of the oceans, more retired boomers will have to move toward the center of the state. Here they will find lots of swamp water and plenty of hungry alligators.

 

 

Arizona has sand, and loads of it. This will be very helpful to Florida as global warming sucks away their beaches. There’s so much sand that if you’re retired in Arizona, a well-known fun retirement activity is renting a camel, riding it through the sand, and pretending you’re Lawrence of Arabia. At least until the sunstroke kills you.

 

 

North Dakota eschews surf and sand in favor of snow that gets as high as an elephant’s eye. White, crystalline, and pure – much like heroin, but with none of the bad side effects. Retirees can make snow angels to practice for Heaven or dig snow caves to play Pirates of the North with grandkids. And challenging your neighbor to a snowball fight is considered great winter fun.

Weather

Florida is the Sunshine State. Of course, with that sunshine comes humidity, and plenty of it. So for about six months of the year, retirees practice sweat walking – from their house to their cars, from their cars to the supermarket, from their cars to the mall, from their cars to the community clubhouse, and then all that walking back to their cars. Living in Florida, you’ll sweat so much, retirement communities sell salt licks to raise money for charity.

Arizona has sunshine with heat. We’re talking six months of dry, burning heat that only a cactus could love. In Arizona, 50% of a retiree’s budget goes to health care and 50% goes to paying the air conditioning bill. Retirees do save a little money by not turning on their gas stoves – they just fry food on the stones in their backyards.

This kind of heat and humidity is not a problem in North Dakota. In fact, the sun can actually be seen in the sky during the summer month and you’ll only need to wear one sweater when you go outside. But it’s the winter, starting in September and running through July that will keep any retiree healthy. As stated by the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, “There is no medicine like a crisp North Dakota winter morning to put spring and vigor into the steps of old and young alike.”

Activities

Florida has marlins galore, and I don’t mean just the baseball team. A geezer can fish till he gets skin cancer. Or, while the sand lasts, senior citizens can enjoy the glorious beaches. At least until they get skin cancer. Then, seniors can always stop eating for a few months so they can afford to take their grandkids to Disney World. Finally, for active geezers, there’s always wrasslin’ with gators in the Okefenokee Swamp.

 

 

 

Arizona is the Grand Canyon State. You can tour the Grand Canyon with your wife, then with the kids when they visit, then with the grandkids when you’re babysitting, then with friends from Florida, then…you will get sick of the Grand Canyon.

 

 

North Dakota offers a year round cornucopia of activities. During winter, the more adventurous geezer can always try snowshoeing, dog sledding, and flickertail hunting. Flickertails are Richardson’s ground squirrels, which are abundant in North Dakota – and quite edible. After the winter snow caves melt, you can clear out the slush, dig out ice-covered animals, and thaw out lost and frozen hikers.

Living

Florida has loads of gated retirement communities. These sprawling apartment building complexes rise high in the sky, creating a sunny beehive-like atmosphere. Of course, if the elevator isn’t working, you have to stay put in your apartment. Don’t worry, it’s probably too humid to go out anyway.

Arizona has loads of gated retirement communities with championship golf courses, smooth tennis courts, and crystal clear pools. If only it ever cooled down enough to go out and enjoy these amenities.

North Dakota has many fewer retirement communities – but that’s only because it hasn’t been discovered yet. Yes, winter does bring occasional blizzards in which heavy snowfall, poor visibility, high winds, and dangerously low wind chill temperatures combine to make travel virtually impossible. But who needs a gated community with that kind of weather?

So keep North Dakota in mind when it’s time for retirement. The flickertails will welcome you – and you can eat them.

 

For more about retirement communities, read Welcome to Your Retirement Community Choices.

 

Filed under: Home> Travel Tags: Tags: active geezers, Arizona, Flickertail, Flickertail state, Florida, geezer, golden years, Grand Canyon State, humor, North Dakota, retired boomers, retiree, retirement activity, retirement communities, retirement living, Richardson ground squirrel, satire, senior citizen, seniors, Sunshine State by geezerbill Date 29 December, 2011
1 Comment »

I had an internist once. But when I turned 66, he gave me the bad news. “You’re old now,” he said gravely, “And you’re not going to live forever. What’s more, your veins are too small, your skin is wrinkly, and it seems like you’re always complaining about some ache or pain. The dollars and cents truth is that more aches take more diagnostic time and since my medical group only allows 10 minutes a patient, taking care of you can break the bank. What’s more, figuring out what’s wrong with you requires a lot more analysis and thinking – hardly conducive to my getting out early for a quick round of golf. You’re fired.”

 

So I dipped into my retirement fund and began a search for an internist that didn’t whine about my age. I thought I should look at a place where they needed some geezers to practice on – the local medical school hospital. But the medical school Dean set me straight.

“Look, my aging friend,” he lectured. We get two kinds of doctors in training here. The first kind is in it for the bucks so they certainly aren’t interested in going into geriatrics. Then they’d have to accept Medicare payments for their work. Hardly enough money there to even pay off their medical school loans.

“The other kind of doctors are in it to help the poor and indigent – the young poor and indigent. Young unwed moms. Kids from broken homes. Starving babies. The bright eyes, smiles, and grateful tears make the docs feel good. But senior citizens just don’t give them the psychic satisfaction they want.”

The Dean suggested I visit a retirement home. “Maybe they have a geriatrician with some time on her hands.”

Soon I was in the office of the Director of a local high-end retirement home. Of course, it wasn’t called a retirement home. It was a Formerly Active Adult Rest Enclave. I spoke to the Director who told me that internists who specialize in geriatrics were an endangered species. “No money. No respect. And they have to treat old people.”

For medical care, the retirement home was using a pediatrician who came in on her lunch hour to pick up a few extra bucks. Or, on a part time basis, she told me, they got a medical student who needed some extra cash to pay for his golf clubs.

The Director recommended trying a foreign country. “Doctors there still seem to care about their elder population,” she volunteered. So I took a little more money out of my retirement fund and flew off to Mexico.

When I got to Mexico City, I paid a cab driver 20 bucks for the name of a village that was supposed to have a doctor who treated older people. After a $100 dollar cab ride, I found myself in a local village where people led me to the doctor’s office. “Sì, I used to treat old people,” he explained, “but the cartels took them to use as drug mules.”

Not wanting to transport drugs for a living, I flew to Canada where I learned they did have geriatric internists. I tried to make an appointment, but was told the earliest available was in two years. I told them I would pay cash. “You’re using American dollars,” they laughed, “Maybe if you paid in yuan…”

I traveled to Europe where I was told no one treats old people because they are too healthy. The best they could do for me was to prescribe a bowl of pasta and a glass of red wine.

Returning home, I decided I was going about this all wrong. Instead of looking for a geriatric internist, I decided to look for an internist who was a geriatric. After using a few more of my retirement dollars, I found a doctor in a small town who, at age 88, was still practicing medicine. So I moved to the town and became his patient.

I just have to hope he lives forever.

For more about geezers and medicine read Inventing Medical Devices for Medicare Riches

 

Filed under: Aging> Health Tags: Tags: doctor, geezers, geriatric, geriatric internists, geriatrician, geriatrics, humor, internist, medical care, Medicare payments, old people, retirement dollars, retirement home, satire, senior citizens by geezerbill Date 30 November, 2011
No comments »