keep your balance; mind your protcol

keep your balance; mind your protocol

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Your flesh begins to crawl and your balance begins to waiver when you lose your legitimacy in the world.

The children in the class you teach all put their hands up at once and waive them aggressively about at the exact moment the Principal enters your classroom for an inspection tour. Your aged car stalls dead on the expressway in right front of the highway patrol officer; as officer walks up to your vehicle his uniform fits exactly, all spit and polish. No one sends you copies of the planning committees memo notes from the Monday morning meeting at work anymore. No one expects you to bring food at Holidays anymore and the potato salad at the fourth of July this decade is bought at Wal-Mart.

Time has moved on for yourself. There are a thousand subjects no one can discuss with you anymore and it's been five years since anyone asked your opinion. Even if you are a surgeon at the Hospital or the crack Collection Attorney in town no one asks what you think about the local pro sports team's prospects or the riots over in St Louis. Your only specialty now days is to notice how tired your daughter-in laws looks at Holiday parties.

You are now a non person, persona non grata. Your status in the society around you is gone. Despite your exemplary credit score and bank reserves you are no longer part of the household statistics. You are just a foot-note to the last two economic cycles.

Children forget your name and your affiliation to those around them. Marketers call you by a nick name in mass mailers about changes in health insurance laws. The DMV asks you if you would like to be known as Junior on your drivers license renewal before they terrify you with the dreaded four year vision and hearing alertness test. If you miss one bleep of light or sound on the left side of the screen your relatives put you in the Nursing facility.

Mind your balance less you break a hip or strain an ankle denoting your economic usefulness is coming to an end. Change the oil filter in your vehicle every five hundred miles of gentle driving less you lose your freedom and mobility. Keep secret cash stashes about the house less you become destitute and dependent on an apathetic audience.

Don't tread on me; I look out from changed eyes askew. My opinion is my own, my status is of no matter. Age has me changed, my philosophy has morphed. Ambulance and tow truck drivers are mine enemy, tax collectors and concerned citizens are mine nuisance.

Be not a burden. Carry your walking stick aggressively. Keep loaded gun in closet. Don't affiliate, don't become  categorized. Refuse the senior discount. Go your way alone. Look, notice, understand; help the weak, uphold justice. Speak you mind.

Keep your balance, mind your protocol. Your status is changed.