Competing on bad health

Helga is finds it difficult to change the subject when talking to her elderly mother.

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Helga: I was talking to her just last night, and you know, as usual, from minute 1 to goodbye, it was all about health. The heart, the nausea, the back ache.

Astrid: It’s all old people are conscious of. Have you noticed, it’s all about health and the past. The aches and pains and how things were better before.

Helga: And young people talk about their plans and the future and what they’re going to do, never health.

Astrid: Maybe diet.

Helga: But sometimes think old people talking about health are almost competing. My back pain is a lot worse then your back pain. You think you have a bad knee? That’s nothing! I can’t even get up the steps with out my stick.

Astrid: Well maybe competition runs through conversation of the old and the young, just the topics change. Like young guys. My car is faster then yours. And we women, you know sister asked me yesterday, what have you done to your hair? It was an opener so she could show off her new hairstyle.

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Gifts for the elderly

Rebecca discusses with the pharmacist about gifts for the elderly .

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Rebecca: What’s good for an old chap on a visit?

Pharmacist: Aftershave?

Rebecca: Perhaps. How about foot balm? Everyone has cracked heels when they get old. I mean, don’t they?

Pharmacist: Not everyone.

Rebecca: Well I do and I’m 61. He’s 87 so genetically he must.

Pharmacist: Right. He may very well have dry feet. So foot balm could be good.

Rebecca: All right. Now for my mother. If he gets something and she doesn’t, she’ll be miffed.

Pharmacist: If it’s feet for him, how about hand cream for her. Some nice olive extract?

Rebecca: Choices. Shopping is hard.

Pharmacist: I don’t go shopping on my off-days.

Rebecca: Most people do. It’s the new religion. Malls are the new churches. Oh, you go to church?

Pharmacist: No, it’s OK. I don’t go to church on Sundays. But neither do I go shopping. I cook for my generally ungrateful family.

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Voiceover

Rebecca is a baby-boomer. Old enough to have parents nudging 90. Gifts are a problem. Books? Have read the stories or the print is small. Electrical goods? Can never work out how to use them so they end up in a drawer. Clothes? All dressed up and nowhere to go.

That leaves: food, perhaps a plant, or maybe health care products. Discreetly chosen.

Rebecca is aware that her cynicism regarding shopping and consumerism being the new religion might offend the pharmacist treads carefully with her check, "Oh, you go to church?" being a thin cover for the direct question, "Are you religious?" or "Are you Christian?" Statistically, downunder, or the U.K., she is on safish ground, but in the U.S. she could be taking a greater risk.

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