I Am Now Officially Too Old To Behave Myself

Sometimes the temptation is too great to ignore

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Do you ever read an article and all the writer does is tell you about themself, and you think, ‘Oh no! Not another self-indulgent piece.’

Unfortunately, this is exactly that type of article.

Except I did find a way to make it interesting.

I’m in the habit of not being late, especially for hospital appointments. So, I arrive in plenty of time for a coffee in the Starbucks at the entrance.

“A small cappuccino, please.”

They don’t actually do ‘small’ in Starbucks. They call it a ‘short’ — it’s actually in a big mug. If my wife had been with me, I’d happily share it with her and save myself from peeing all day. It’s 8 oz of coffee — I looked it up.

I noticed they do a ‘Trenta’ (which is Italian for 30) — in Starbucks, a Trenta holds 31 oz. Don’t ask me why, but there must be enough coffee in it to wake Rip Van Winkle.

“Name?” the girl asks.

“Handsome,” I say with a beaming smile.

“Pardon?” She says.

“Handsome,” I reply, a little less smiley. And she writes the name on a cup — still not getting the joke.

It’s busy. There is a queue of ten people waiting. I do a quick calculation and estimate 15 minutes, so I sit at the back of the shop and open the Kindle app on my phone.

Fifteen minutes later, the barista shouts, “Handsome.”

A slim-hipped blonde woman looks around in anticipation and spots me getting out of my seat at the back. I give her a cheeky smile. She looks disappointed and turns away. I’m reminded of my resolve to go for a half-hour walk ten minutes before lunch.

None of the others in the queue pay any attention.

I get back to my seat and note the server spelt the name I gave her as ‘Hanson’ — no wonder she didn’t get the joke. Maybe I need to think of other names: Midlife Crisis, Hottie, Bond… James Bond. I’m working up to trying: Stud Muffin, Rich Bastard, or Our Favourite Customer — I’d take a bow if I got that through.

Making mischief is one of life’s great pleasures. It’s up there with living five minutes from work, having a body that doesn’t hurt and drinking coffee without having to rush.

I don’t have to rush.

So, I’m still there when Gordon walks in. Gordon is an ex-colleague who has a fondness for posting his every movement on Facebook

• Look what I had for breakfast.
• Look, I’ve eaten my breakfast.
• Look, a cow.

Gordon posts so often that to all his friends, Facebook looks like his family album.

I like Gordon. It’s just that I prefer not to know his whereabouts every minute of the fucking day. I have good reason — there is great pleasure in meeting someone you haven’t seen in a while and enjoying a tête-à-tête. That involves catching up on what’s been happening in their life. A précis of the pertinent bits is much preferable to a blow-by-blow account.

Gordon gets his coffee and looks for a seat. I wave; he spots me and joins me at my table. I get a blow-by-blow account of everything he’s posted on Facebook since World War II.

Tempus fugit.

“I need to go to my appointment.

“What are you here for?” he enquires.

My mischievous nature bubbles to the top. “It’s a bit embarrassing,” I whisper.

“Oh…,” says Gordon, not sure whether to follow up. I’d already thought of a couple of fantasy ailments:

• I pulled a muscle in my shoulder wiping my bum.
• I got two dead legs doing the crossword on the toilet.

I went with:

“I was in bed making love to the wife when I got cramp in my left glute. It went into spasm and damaged the tendons.”

“Shit. Sorry to hear that, Malky.”

“It’s okay. The good news is the wife says it was the best sex she ever had.”

Orthopaedics has a desk.

Behind the desk sits a bosomy middle-aged, dyed-blonde woman.

“Good morning,” I say. “How’s your day going?”

She looks startled. Like nobody, but nobody, has ever asked her that before — I can tell by her puzzled eyebrows, not eyebrows in the hirsute sense; these are tattooed halfway up her forehead. I reassess. I’m guessing she has a resting ‘what do you want’ face.

“I have an appointment,” I say.

“What area?”

I look at my NHS letter.

“Area five,” I tell her.

“Well, go to area five. Along there,” she points. “It’s after area four.” Her voice sounds as if she had only just taken it from the freezer and needed time to melt.

Give her her due, she did what she gets paid to do.

I’m twenty minutes early for my appointment. I have to wait by the desk for ten minutes to ‘sign in’ with the Desk 5 receptionist as she deals with a tricky customer over the phone. I tell her why I’m there; she asks for my date of birth and tells me to take a seat.

The chairs are set in a format that would have confused Pythagoras. Only three are taken. I sit at the back with a space to one side. I’m good at this. Years of choosing wisely have been honed by conquering the urinal problem:

Gentlemen's toilets usually have urinals set in a row. The object of the exercise is to pee in peace. That means picking one that will leave you furthest away from other pissers, taking into consideration the unknown variables — additional pissers entering and their state of sobriety. The rules are: no conversation unless he’s your pal and you talk about football. And never, under any circumstances, make eye contact.

I open my Kindle app again, but a steady stream of patients signing in gives me a new distraction. I guess their age and work out if I’m correct when they provide their date of birth.

A trio of sixty-something women disturb the order of things by splitting up and sitting to my right and left and begin talking across me. One is wearing an argumentative scent that would fill an auditorium. They complain about the traffic, bloating, jobs, wrinkles.

I think they are lucky. They have cars, food, money and have lived a life.

I can’t help myself. “Excuse me,” I say. “It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday next week, can I ask you where you got your perfume?”

The woman smelling like she had a bath in the stuff was ever-so-pleased.

“Oh, thank you,” she smiles. “I think I got this from ‘Savers’.”

“Is it expensive?” I give her a look that says I’m a cheapskate.

“I’m not sure, I think it was about ten quid.”

“A big bottle then?”

“Yes,” she said, with no sense of irony.

We chat a little. One of them asks me what I’m there for.

“It’s a bit sad,” I tell her. “My dad couldn’t have kids, and I’m here to find out if it’s genetic.”

Lucky I got called before they figured that one out.