Get Thee to a Nunnery!
Gah, I miss sex. It was a mistake to indulge in any form of carnal pleasure again because it annoyingly reminded me that I’m not dead from the waist down. I mean it had been a year, I was positively a virgin again, just one situationship away from the nunnery. The only heavy-breathing I’d heard in months had been on a particularly difficult hike with a slight hangover. Just as I was growing accustomed to my life as a celibate I indulged in a moonlit skinny-dipping dalliance. Fool. Now I must rely on this shag flashback to sustain me through the forthcoming barren months of being a live-in carer. Instead of floating naked down a South African river with a younger man, I find myself fully clothed in frigid London looking after octogenarians. I can assure you a more sexless life does not exist (well, except for you Mother Theresa.)
I had forgotten just how boring the life of an 89 year old can be. There’s lots of dozing. A strict timetable of meals, tea and cake, crosswords, puzzles and daytime TV. There’s also an alarming amount of sugar - these post-WWII survivors are a true medical marvel. Ms B, as I’ll call my latest temporary charge, has three biscuits with morning tea, a pudding after lunch, a slice of cake with afternoon tea and ice-cream with wafers after dinner. Her room is a treasure hunt of hidden biscuits and candied sucking sweets to, and I quote, “stave off midnight starvation.” While I half expect her to slip into a diabetic coma at any minute, despite being as crooked as a question mark from osteoporosis, the old girl is incredibly spritely and largely unmedicated.
We’ve talked at length about how different the world was when she was younger. Eating in the streets? Heavens, how unseemly! The only thing it was permissible to eat in the street was ice-cream simply due to the limitations of its form. (And i’m sure there was an etiquette guide on how a young woman should eat it, presumably it’s much like bananas - no direct eye contact.) Even if you could snack on the go, fast food - even a sandwich - just wasn’t on offer. You went home to prepare your meal and eat it in a civilised manner on a china plate. A far cry from today’s ultra-packaged world of ultra-processed foods and a growing obesity crisis. To Ms B’s point, you couldn’t overeat if there wasn’t food to eat.
The world of Ms B’s childhood into adulthood is so very different from where we are and the AI-accelerated future into which we’re heading. She grew up in a time of waiting and restriction. You simply couldn’t have it all at once.
In the spirit of delayed gratification I’ll think fondly of water and fingertips kissing my skin until another erotic adventure crosses my path. But for those of you who can, have the sex, for when you’re 89 all you’ll have is sugar.
I had forgotten just how boring the life of an 89 year old can be. There’s lots of dozing. A strict timetable of meals, tea and cake, crosswords, puzzles and daytime TV. There’s also an alarming amount of sugar - these post-WWII survivors are a true medical marvel. Ms B, as I’ll call my latest temporary charge, has three biscuits with morning tea, a pudding after lunch, a slice of cake with afternoon tea and ice-cream with wafers after dinner. Her room is a treasure hunt of hidden biscuits and candied sucking sweets to, and I quote, “stave off midnight starvation.” While I half expect her to slip into a diabetic coma at any minute, despite being as crooked as a question mark from osteoporosis, the old girl is incredibly spritely and largely unmedicated.
We’ve talked at length about how different the world was when she was younger. Eating in the streets? Heavens, how unseemly! The only thing it was permissible to eat in the street was ice-cream simply due to the limitations of its form. (And i’m sure there was an etiquette guide on how a young woman should eat it, presumably it’s much like bananas - no direct eye contact.) Even if you could snack on the go, fast food - even a sandwich - just wasn’t on offer. You went home to prepare your meal and eat it in a civilised manner on a china plate. A far cry from today’s ultra-packaged world of ultra-processed foods and a growing obesity crisis. To Ms B’s point, you couldn’t overeat if there wasn’t food to eat.
The world of Ms B’s childhood into adulthood is so very different from where we are and the AI-accelerated future into which we’re heading. She grew up in a time of waiting and restriction. You simply couldn’t have it all at once.
In the spirit of delayed gratification I’ll think fondly of water and fingertips kissing my skin until another erotic adventure crosses my path. But for those of you who can, have the sex, for when you’re 89 all you’ll have is sugar.
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