Just Lock Up The Geriatrics And Throw Away The Key!

Geriatrics – people who think the world owes them favours and that we, who are younger than them, have had life easy.

But hang on a minute for if I am not mistaken, the word geriatric is supposedly an offensive term meaning showing the effects of age. But what the heck and seeing that my editor, Lucy Parwot who would no doubt have stricken the term from this Sunday tale is away on maternity leave, it’s a case of ‘when the cat is away, the mice will play’.

Geriatrics had gathered at the Sheraton Hotel for the Vintage Car Show. With their skeletal bodies, they reminisced about the old days when cars were mbu cars and not the toys that are manufactured today.

“Look at this car” so Geriatric told me. “The original radio still works” he beamed. In TB style, I sneered and asked him to tune into Vision Voice. His response? “It can’t pick up Vision Voice.”

“How about MP3, does it play MP3” I asked. He gave me a look, a look that said he didn’t know what MP3 was and to save face, he started to rant along these lines.

“What do you know about cars? In our days we bought new ones. We had style and class.”

By now he was dribbling malusu that I thought his false teeth had fallen out. I know it’s not nice to generalise especially about geriatrics – sorry, I meant to say old people, but Geriatric, looked like a paedophile on the run from the IOC and from somewhere in the DRC – probably Bukavu

I didn’t have time for Geriatric. Jeez, his ride didn’t even have power steering or air con so that was it for the car show and off I went to the hospitality tent to find decent young people to have a decent young conversation with.

Laban Musoke, who I believe signs the cheques for Nile Gold which also sponsored the event, had practically carted the entire stock of Nile Gold that the brewery had to the event. Quaffing beers was the perfect antidote to listening to babbling Geriatric.

But in one corner of the tent, Geriatric along with other geriatrics had made it their home and unable to control their malusu, they let it dribble down their shirts and all over the grass. Christ, I hope I don’t end up like that.

Out of the blue Geriatric accosted me again. “You Bukumunhe come here! Do you know that I know your father? Why don’t you write something sensible? This car show can give you idea of what it used to be like in the old days. Did you know I used to drive my Anglia down to Kabale and back? And what is that that you are drinking?”

I literally had to fight back the torrent tumbavu’s which I was ready to unleash on him. Just who on earth did Geriatric think he was? I was not going to let it lie and duly put him in his place. I told him: “Listen here you sneering geriatric half wit, why don’t you hobble yourself back to your Anglia and drive yourself back to Kabale if that makes you happy.”

With that, his heart started to palpate, his pacemaker went into overdrive, he dropped his cane and he hobbled back to his seat faster than Frasier Crane’s dad could hobble from his 1950s green chair to the kitchen in the TV series Frasier.

Am sure by 7:30pm, he was in bed being fed matooke and mashed meat because he’d probably lost his false teeth while Laban, took the rest of us on a gold memory bliss until the wee hours of the morning.