No time-outs from being old – unless you count the ‘Big Sleep’

How nice of Laura Carstensen to spare a thought for the feelings of old people.  And how nice of her to hunt down a word for us – “perennials” – that will make us feel good. I for one am grateful for her thoughtful concern.
But let’s face it, folks, old is old, and there’s no way you can prettify it. I wince at some of the smarmy euphemisms some folks devise.  “Elderly” is not bad, but “seniors” is cringeworthy, and “silver foxes” is the very worst. Much better to be up front about it and call us old timers, old geezers, old codgers, old farts, and even old a-holes if you want to.
I personally believe that old age starts at 60. At 65 they should issue you a gun and one bullet, so that you can check out any time you feel like it. But old age doesn’t really start to take off till you hit 70.  I’m 79, and I regard everybody under 70 as just a baby. Seventy is when you really start to fall apart. “After 70, it’s patch, patch, patch,”  as Jimmy Stewart memorably opined. So watch out for 70, you youngsters in your 60s. Donnie the Mouth is 71, and I’m waiting for him to start to crumble. It’s certain that his mouth will be the last part of him to go, because it gets so much exercise.
The nasty thing about old age is that it never stops till we’re dead.  There are no time-outs, intermissions or vacations. The older we  get, the more decrepit and dysfunctional we get. Science and medicine can slow this relentless decline, but they can’t stop it. At the bottom of the abyss we see Death grinning up at us.
Contemplating this horror is one of the things that make so many old men so grouchy. (I can’t speak for women, because I’m not one.)  We’re gradually losing all our faculties, we’re going steadily downhill, and it’s never going to get any better. At the end of the downward slide is oblivion: the Big Sleep. All of our fantasising about reincarnation or an afterlife frolicking in the heavenfields isn’t going to change that. We all love to sleep (me especially), but we’d also like to wake up occasionally.
But hey. It’s not so bad. Drillions and multigadillions of people have died since the world began, and you don’t hear any of them complaining. Being dead has advantages nobody ever thinks of.  You’ll never have to get up in the morning, you’ll never have to yell, “Where’s my morning coffee?”, you’ll never have to curse CNN’s Christiane Amanpour for being such an arrogant, obnoxious, loudmouthed twit, you’ll never have to put up with Bangkok’s horrendous traffic again, you’ll never have to do another visa run, and you’ll never have to read another self-righteous rant by Eric Bahrt. Viewed in such sunny terms, death is a blessing generously bestowed upon us by a kindly deity, and old age is merely its unpleasant precursor.
Oldly, 
Ye Olde Pedant