I think the time has come to do something about the elderly in this country. Pretty much anyone over the age of 65, really.
In my job, I often find myself talking to the elderly (I am a shuffleboard instructor), and I often hear the same old refrain: “You young people don’t do anything for us! All the things we’ve done for you since you were little kids, and what have you done for us?! Huh?!” Often, I do not have time to answer because I am going to the bank to withdraw enormous amounts of money to pay for the various luxury items – such as shelter and food – that my paycheck does not cover. Of course, it would cover those items if it weren’t for the fact that the government feels a need to extract large portions of my pay to pay for various things like, oh, Social Security and Medicare… things I will never get to use because they’re all being sucked dry now to pay for important, life saving needs such as viagra and designer golf carts. But, anyway, on to how I never do things for old people….
What’s that? Ah, yes, well old people do give back in their own special way, you’re right. Without the elderly we would not have time to enjoy the scenery on our major interstate highways when we are caught behind an elderly driver in a car that you could land a small aircraft on traveling 14MPH with the right turn signal on in anticipation of the fact that at some point in the next 48 hours the driver might make a right turn. Without the elderly, there would be no one to vote against more money for schools, pore carefully over their 400-item grocery receipts while still in line at the checkout, or talk graphically about bowel movements in television commercials. Yes, so they deserve every penny they get, these old people, from good ol’, generous Uncle Sam.
The same with NASA (no, wait, I’m going somewhere here – hang in there). NASA takes a lot of my money too for the noble and useful purpose of shooting expensive things into space. Most of the time, it’s for “research” – meaning that the NASA scientists have no real idea what is going to happen when they propel fifty tons of steel containing a complete collection of Doris Day movies or some other bizarre item into space. Which is why NASA strikes me as nothing more than an institutionalized fraternity prank. I mean, who else could come up with the idea of packing tons of explosive material and a monkey into a metal tube and then shooting it into space to “see what happens?”
Now, it is quite clear that neither of these programs – care of the elderly and shooting things into space – is going to disappear anytime soon. Which is how we arrive at my… SIMPLE PLAN!
Quite simply – are you paying attention? – we shoot the elderly into space. Now, they would have a destination – we could build them a little domed city on the moon. Here they could live in peace on a little geriatric lunar oasis. There’s no gravity, so there would be no wear and tear on those creaky joints and lifting heavy objects is a snap. The lack of gravity would also do wonders for their golf games. The artificially purified air could be scented with a light spray of Ben Gay and gin to give it that homey “old people” smell. They could crawl painfully slowly across the lunar surface in moon buggies – no highways means no annoying traffic. And best of all – no young people to mess things up! The youngest person on the moon would be Andy Griffith in reruns of “Matlock.”
I urge you to write your congressman and say, “Yes! I want to send old people to the moon!” Oh, but I think we should rename the moon “Florida.” That way, if any old people ask you what you are doing, you can say, “I am demanding that the US government pay for you to move to Florida!” And won’t they be thrilled? Because it’s about time we young people did something for the elderly.