Recently, I’ve had far too much interaction with old people. This isn’t usually a problem, I mean, if it were my gran, I’d be happy! Unfortunately, one of the ancients was a carpenter, and one a driver. Both the kind of job meant to be done by someone younger (it’s got nothing to do with ageism, both these jobs involve a high chance of killing yourself).
A fine Saturday morning, I’m home, asleep, and the bell rings at like 6am. Yes, that early. Turns out, it’s Mr Old, the carpenter. We weren’t expecting him that quick, so I actually thought he’s just some lost guy. Anyway, Mr Old comes in, all dressed neat and tidy, with a bag of tools and really white shoes. He says he does this as a hobby, and otherwise, he’s some great furniture/interior/nautical ‘designer’. Alright, well, I’m a designer too, doesn’t mean I go out to people’s houses and drill holes in their walls on my weekends for measly labour wages. If I were his age, I’d stay home and read the paper, or play with my great grand kids, or watch the news. Anyway, so he starts marking the walls, refusing to listen to me when I ask him to put more nails in. My work is heavy. It needs the nails! Any fool would figure that out. So anyway, he does what he wants really dangerously (which was knock one nail in and say that I can hang my work up). And then after making a mess, he leaves. And then I find the nails don’t hold my work. So I call him back, and when he turns up finally, he does what I tell him too, all the time saying he’s a designer so it should have worked his way. (At this point, I was thinking well, you’re probably drilling holes in my wall only because your design capabilities and common sense suck. I would never trust his furniture.) Finally, when everything is up on the walls, and he’s made yet another mess I have to clear up, he tells me I have to pay him again. This time not for his rubbish job, but for his petrol and the fact that he came back after his lunch. What? Fuck off. I tried telling him that he was being stupid, but then he refused to get out of my house. Mr Old turned out to be Mr Evil. So all I could do was pay him to get him the hell out of my house.
Another fine Saturday, I realise I have a mahooosive clean up at the other house. It would take ages. So I don’t want to drive and decide to call one of those 4-hour drivers. It’s easier than stressing yourself out, you can sit back and relax in your own car, it’s perfect. So when this driver finally arrives, he’s old. Like older that my grandfather old. Seriously? Are you kidding me? I couldn’t do anything but go with him though, so I sat in the front with two others in the back. I think the whole time we were in the car, we were shitting ourselves. It was stressful watching the old driver turn the steering wheel. He had that problem where he’s just slow. Turning left took an hour. It was ridiculous. I could have just driven myself! In addition to how slow he was, we soon realised he also couldn’t hear so well and was easily distracted, mainly because he wouldn’t stop talking! He told me about his life, and that he had 2 kids, who now also have 2 kids each. His daughter’s a doctor in Delhi and he’s moving to the US in a few days and he has a job right now, but he likes to drive (shock, horror!) so he’s doing this as a “hobby” too. What is up with these old people!? Why can’t they be normal and just do something safe like stamp-collecting, where the only possible harm might be paper cutting your tongue! Crazies.
Thankfully, we did not die. I did however cut short my cleaning so we could get back before traffic got bad, just in case we were meant to die in my car. Also, I didn’t let him park my car, cos that would mean he’d have to reverse. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that!
I’m not anti-old…I’m more anti-stress. Bingo. (That’s another thing all these old people desperate for hobbies could do. Go, form a group and don’t come to my house. )