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I’d Rather Be a ‘Blogger Idol’ Than an ‘Idle Blogger’

Hey, all — time for something a little bit different around here. I’ve signed up for a new, um… experiment is the best way I can put it, really. It’s called ‘Blogger Idol‘, and it seems like an interesting way to find some new blogs, have a few laughs, and learn something about our fellow online writers.

(Ooh, and most importantly, it’s a damned fine way to get handed an interesting topic once a week for a while. And I’ll take all the help I can get.)

So, read up on the ‘Blogger Idol‘ concept, and join in if you like — it seems it’s never too late. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my humble entry into the Blogger Idol Week One fray. It’s coming up… why, as a matter of fact, right now. Hang on tight!

(Click to see all Week One posts)

Week One Topic: ‘The 80s’

Okay, so right off the bat, I’m gonna be a big weenie. (Those of you who read regularly, pipe down already. These other folks don’t know that’s par for the course. Hush up.)

Anyway, the Blogger Idol instructions encourage us to ‘interpret the theme however you wish’, so that’s what I’m going to do. Most people will spend time discussing ‘The 80s’, meaning the 1980s, and all the cool / memorable / embarrassing / unruly / illegal things that they did during that decade. But I’m not going there. I’ve talked about a lot of things already that happened in the 1980s here on the site — if you’re really interested, browse my 101 Things Posts About Me; anything I describe there as happening between ages ten and twenty occured in the 80s. Knock yourself out. Come back when you’re ready.

As for this post, though, I’ve chosen not to talk about ‘The 80s’ as they were, fourteen to twenty-four years ago. Instead, I want to consider ‘The 80s’ — more specifically, my 80s — as they’re going to be, forty-five years and change away from now. I’m gonna plan for my old old old age now, and get that shit out of the way. This way, if senility creeps in before I make it to my octagenarian years, someone can dust off this post and find out what I have in mind for my post-golden years.

(Not that they will, of course… but they could. I can hold onto that thought until the last vestige of sanity finally slips away, believing until the bitter ed that my words will save me. Of course, it’s far more likely that I’ll be spouting gibberish and pooping my geriatri-diapers in a cold, deserted alley somewhere. But I can dream, can’t I?)

Anyway, on to the 80s — my 80s. I’ll turn the big eight-oh on July 27th, 2050, assuming I last long enough to celebrate the event. Of course, by then, the attendees at birthday parties will be holographically beamed directly into our brains, so I won’t even have the pleasure of bitch-slapping whichever bastard decides to put those ‘ever-lit’ candles on the damned cake. Great. I’m looking forward to this already. Right.

Anyway, let’s assume the world of nearly fifty years from now will be much like today’s society. (Yeah, yeah, I know better — but in my Alzheimer’s-addled brain, I’ll probably think it’s still 2004, so work with me here. I’m working without a net tonight.) So, in case this post survives, and any of you are still around to protect my interests, here’s what I want for ‘The 80s: Charlie-Style‘:

First of all, I want to be in a ‘home’ of some sort. I don’t care what it’s called — ‘retirement village’, ‘elder care facility’, ‘the Super-8 of Boca Raton’, any of these would do. I just want to be anyplace where the staff is obligated to feed me, tuck me in at night, and help me keep my pants on in public. Ooh, and give me sponge baths, when I’m feely frisky. Hell, screw my 80s — all of that sounds pretty good right now.

Anyway, next I’ll be wanting a fake ID. As an optimist, I like to think that by the time I turn 80, there will be laws against nearsighted old wrinklebags taking the wheel. ‘Grinch the Geezers’ statutes, or something similar, I expect they’ll be called. But I, for one, am gonna drive. I’ll have an ID made showing that I’m fifty-three years young, and I’ll drive like the shrivelled, half-blind, confused old bastard that I am. (Or that I’ll be — yeah, that I’ll be, that’s what I meant.)

In any case, it’s gonna rock — I’ll finally be able to get even for all of those old farts who’ve been cutting me off, and not using their blinkers, and driving at three miles a frickin’ hour in front of me on one-way streets over the years. Oh, sure, I won’t be getting back at the same people… but by then, all the old people who’ve wronged me will be dead, or cryogenically frozen. Either way, I’ll need more lively targets, so I’ll take to the streets and annoy the rest of the world, instead. Look, by the time I’m that old, it’ll all make perfect sense. Just wait and see.

Let’s see… what else? Oh, yeah — a private bathroom. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t mind being stuck in some sort of overcrowded ward — as long as the feeding and the the tucking and sponge baths are included, natch — but I am not spending my eighties watching raisiny old coots getting in and out of the shower, all right? I got enough of that shit when I belonged to the YMCA as a kid; I’m not goin’ out like that.

Okay, that’s probably enough, given that I started on a fricking tangent from the intended topic. (Usually, it takes me at least a paragraph or two to lose focus; this time, it was downright instantaneous. Nice little preview of life in my eighties right there. Bah.) So, I hope you enjoyed my ‘interpretation’ of the very first Blogger Idol subject. And maybe this will help you think about how you want to spend the after-autumn of your life. These are important considerations, folks — you don’t want to be dressing yourselves, and cleaning your own diapers, or trying to erase the images of flabby naked old geezers from your traumatized retinas. Get with the program, and make your own ’80s list’ today! Just don’t get carried away — I’ve got dibs on the sponge baths, all right? Find your own hot nurses, dammit.