When I get older…

…losing my hair
(many years from now)

I hope that I can avoid writing letters in to the local press about my perceptions of the state of things today, and how they are affecting my dreams.

I’ll try to not write stuff like:

a young friend of mine who was studying at university, once said to me, you are the most cynical person I know. I replied I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist, to which he responded that’s what all the cynics say. Which just goes to show you the utter futility of engaging a 20-year- old ‘know-it-all’ student in debate.

Or if I do, I’ll add speech marks so that it makes some sort of sense.

Although, that’s what all the bloggers say, isn’t it?

I may rage against the dying of the light and lament upon just how much glue toilet paper manufacturers put at the beginning of each roll of their product:

one of my pet hates currently is the toilet paper makers habit of putting excessive amounts of glue at the start of a roll of toilet paper which results in shredded strips of paper instead of the anticipated sheets, it drives me mad.

but I certainly won’t share that anger publicly.

I won’t be happy about the fashions of the day, but I’ll keep it to myself:

despite the fact they do like to display their grubby pants to all and sundry by wearing their jeans at half mast.

And it won’t just be the clothing: hairstyles will bewilder me as well:

it’s the older people who, for some unfathomable reason adorn heads with pony tails, they gather together every available wisp of hair from their sparsely thatched craniums and fashion the most rudimentary pony tail, which they then secure with a fragment of ribbon, possibly from a box of chocolates. Perhaps they like to imagine they are 17th century seafaring men.

‘A fragment of ribbon, possibly from a box of chocolates.’

Yes, possibly. But I’ll keep shtum. And about their shorts.
I’ll say nothing.

Their penchant for wearing the clothing of 11-year-old Boy Scouts of some 40 or 50-odd years ago, especially the baggy khaki shorts so hated by the Scouts at the time

I MAY WELL COMMENT ON BEARDS THOUGH:

And then there is facial hair, disgusting and unhygienic. How on earth can anyone consume anything through a layer of wiry hair.

However, if I should end up sending a postcard, dropping a line
Stating point of view, then I hope despite all my cantankerous thoughts and complaints, I hope I have the decency and pride not to try to legitimise all my ideas by attempting to tie them all into one horrendous final shared paragraph:

I’ve been having nightmares lately. I’m sitting on the embankment when a hideous old man appears from nowhere, spindly pony tail dangling from his head, his bewhiskered chin dripping globules of cold porridge down his front and shredded toilet paper dangling from the leg of his oversized shorts.

I’ll never do that. Never.

But I bet that’s what John McHale of Carey Road, Dartmouth thought when he was my age, too.