I’ve never been this old before.
I know that’s a tad obvious.
But the thing is, you don’t get to rehearse getting old.
I had just turned on my laptop the other day (yes, I can operate a computer thank you for asking) and was just logging on.
The radio was on in the background and as I was typing in my password, on came an old song called Let’s Dance.
No, not the David Bowie Let’s Dance though you probably think that’s old too. It’s not.
I’m talking about the Let’s Dance which was Number one sometime in 1962. I was only nine or ten.
But here’s the thing.
I remembered who sang it. It was an American guy called Chris Montez.
The scary thing is, that I remembered every word of the damned thing which is amazing because I never even liked the feckin’ song.
”We’ll do the twist, the stomp, the mashed potato too
Any old dance that you want to do. Let’s Dance.”
God almighty. I was singing about dancing the Mashed Potato.
The thing is that almost every time an old – and I don’t just mean Sixties – song comes on the radio, I know the damned words. I must know at least some of the words of tens of thousands of songs.
But do you want to know what the really scary bit is?
When I turned back to my laptop after humming along to Let’s Dance, I couldn’t remember why I was logging on in the first place.
I knew every word from a song that was a hit 58 years ago.
But I couldn’t remember what I was going to do on my computer.
Yes I KNOW I’M LOOKING VERY WELL.
And no I DON’T NEED TO GO TO THE TOILET AGAIN.
And I HATE COCOA.
But this getting old business is very very stressful.
And I say that even though I had a scan of my bones yesterday in a place called MISA at James’s Hospital. MISA is the Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing.
But it doesn’t do courses in How To Forget The Lyrics Of Songs You Don’t Like From Years Ago.
I think I’ll just forget about the computer for the moment.
And go back to my book.
If I can remember where I left it.
Paddy's World 