A wrinkle in time

by RAF KATIGBAK

“I believe the children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way...”
—Whitney Houston, 1985

Can I just respectfully decry “bullshit” on that? If only Whitney could have really seen into the future, I bet she’d be singing a different tune. I mean, besides trying extra hard to avoid being an alleged crazy crackhead/cult member, she probably would have realized that the children aren’t actually the future. It’s the old people. At least according to Stats Can, who this week released a report stating, “Population projections show that in about 10 years, Canada may have more people at the age where they can leave the labour force than at the age where they can begin working.”

The problem, according to Stats Can, is that the fertility rate is down and life expectancy is up, so we’re getting older and no one’s coming up to fill the gaps. And it only seems to be getting worse. The Baby Boomers, whose generation once helped stem the aging population, will now accelerate it by 2011 as they reach 65.

That’s right Canada, get ready to be a nation of old fogies. Soon our economy will begin to reflect this national aging phenomenon. We’ll see an increase of advertising geared toward septuagenarians, like Ben Gay and Preparation H (now with added bom-chicka-wah-wah), and even our television programming will soon adapt with reality shows like Big Brother: Nursing Home Edition and America’s Next Top Super-Super-Old Model Tyra Banks: “Okay Wilma, I really liked seeing you work those Depends undergarments on the runway, I’m just worried about your broken hip...”

A lot of people fear this vision of an aging nation—whether it’s because they’re overwhelmed by the crushing inevitability of their own mortality, or the fact that old people smell funny—but personally, I can’t wait to get older. Partly because Asian men have it easy when it comes to aging gracefully (despite our propensity for having a huge mole with one extremely long hair growing out of it, we still manage to pull off that wispy white beard/wise-kung-fu-master vibe), also because the truth is that old people rule. Know why? One word: immunity.

1) You can be a dick: When you look like you paid your dues, you have licence to be a complete and utter asshole. As you get older, you realize that you owe society less and less. By the time you’re 90, you can pretty much do whatever you want short of straight-up murder. What kind of jerk can get angry at a toothless hunchback who butts in front of them at the grocery store? What are you gonna do, fight him? You might as well kick the crap out of a bag of prunes while you’re at it, hot shot.

2) Dressing like a crazy person. If you’re 65 and walk around with rainbow MC Hammer pants, pipe cleaners in your hair and a shirt that says, “I’m with stupid” (the arrow pointing up), people will laugh and say hi, ’cause you’re “quirky” and harmless. If you do it at 35, mothers will cross the street shielding their children’s eyes to avoid you.

3) Dressing like a gangster: Rolling around town in a Cadillac wearing a powder blue track suit, ultra-white sneakers and gold chains when you’re 45 means you’re in a pathetic mid-life crisis. Rolling around town in a Cadillac wearing a powder blue track suit, ultra-white sneakers and gold chains when you’re 65 just means you probably live in Ft. Lauderdale and complain about the humidity a lot.

4) Old people have more sex. Well, at least more than we think. The notion that our sex drives stop with age is a total fallacy. In one study of people over the age of 80, most men (88%) and women (71%) still fantasized or daydreamed about intimate activities with the other sex. The notion that geriatric sex (or “geri-action,” as I like to call it) is a really, really gross idea to think about has not changed.

Of course, if we don’t want this to happen, the solution is simple: make more babies. We need to increase our birth rate, so I’m calling on the government to start a campaign—loosely based on that Canadian egg farmers’ campaign from back in the ’80s—that will encourage our nation to procreate. That’s right people, if you don’t want to live in a world where the second sequel in the Cocoon film franchise becomes the summer blockbuster and where people with their own teeth are considered an anomaly, then it’s you’re civic duty to...“Get Fucking!”

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca