Palm Trees and Colons

You know how some people like to spend their Spring Break by going to Cancun or Miami Beach or somewhere else really really fun and exciting? And you know how some other people like to just take it easy and relax and do nothing? Yeah. Well I spent my spring break at a Florida retirement community spying* on the health/packing progress of my about-t0-move-to-Jersey grandmother. WOOOOO!!! Girls Gone Wild here! I! come!!! [Takes off fanny pack and white visor, swinging them sexily.]

The trip started off okay. I was excited to get out of Jersey and take in some Florida sun. Except, just a quick lesson of common courtesy? When riding in coach, don't recline your seat. I know that the 1/4 of an inch that your seat goes back makes for a slightly more comfortable ride, but this is what happens to the person behind you:



And that's just not cool. The person behind you has the shortest legs ever, and look! Sheesh. You make it not only impossible for her to stretch out her little legs whatsoever, but impossible for her to open her laptop. Valuable time that could be spent working on report cards is lost!

And also? What's with the flight attendants pouring 1/3 of a can of soda into a tiny cup with too much ice in it and expecting that to quench your thirst after inhaling that HUGE bag of pretzels they give you??? Oh right. There are only like 3 pretzels in there. Nevermind. 1/3 of a can is enough, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, I won't give you all the humdrum details of the trip. What I will do is give you a rough idea of what it's like to be old, just so you can plan for what happens in the next 50 or so years.

• The stereotype that old-people drivers suck is true. However, they do attempt to make it better by choosing the person with the slightly better eyesight/less frequent colonoscopies to do the driving.
• They all talk about their colonoscopies. And everyone else's colonoscopies. Common conversations between residents of a retirement community may sound something like this: "Hi Alice, how are you?" "Oh, hi Bernice! I'm doing well. I have an appointment for a colonoscopy tomorrow though." "Oh, Ethel just had a colonoscopy yesterday! And Saul has one next week..."
• Gossip is spread from house to house by the cleaning ladies. Cleaning ladies will inform you of the resident colonoscopy schedule, if you're not on the automatic phone chain. And also, cleaning ladies will tell you when your neighbors are angry with you for not stopping by to introduce your granddaughter.
  
• Old people like to parade their visiting grandchildren all-around-the-town.
• They brag about their grandchildren, but secretly don't think they are good enough. Well maybe not all old people do this. But my grandmother does.
• Grandmother to friends: "This is Jessica! She's getting her Master's this summer! She teaches disabled children! And my grandson Daniel is in the Air Force serving his country!"
• Grandmother to me: "You and your brother are both underachievers."

High points of the trip:

• 6-7 hours spent laying by the pool, in the sun, with my iPod.
• Seeing my grandma... 'cause you know... despite the issues, she's still my grandmother, for god's sake. I'm not a total bitch.
• Looking out the window as we started to descend over Philadelphia (hence, my awesome haiku).

* except without the cool shoe-phone

*****

For my in-flight reading enjoyment, I decided on David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day, since it's a collection of light, humorous essays which I figured I could pick up and put down and not feel like I missed something and not have to think too much about. My favorite essay was called "Big Boy," and was about walking into a bathroom at someone's house during a dinner party to find a huge, floating, unflushable turd in the toilet, and then having someone knock on the door while you are in there trying to figure out what to do. Totally reminded me of my New Orleans bathroom incident.