Oh, That Senile Scamp!
I’ve seen scenes in movies where an old man will say something that betrays senility, and his middle-aged child will roll her eyes and make some comment about how out of touch he is. The conversation would go something like…
Old Man: They’re just recruiting everyone and their mother for this war in Iraq! I hope they don’t raise the draft age to 90. I have a bum knee!
Middle-Aged Child of Old Man: They abolished the draft in the ’70s, dad.
Old Man: What?!
Middle-Aged Child of Old Man: There hasn’t been a draft in 30 years, dad. Have you been taking your medication?
From this we learn that this level-headed middle-aged person is having trouble dealing with the fact that her father is a little batty. Aging and the generation gap have taken their toll.
But I think it would be funnier if we turned this scene around and made it so the middle-aged child was at pains to believe that her father was senile, even though his misunderstanding wasn’t that bad.
For instance, similar characters are at a bagel shop in New York. Except this time the old man is lactose intolerant. As the scene begins, he speaks to the man behind the counter who is about to put cream cheese on his bagel.
Old Man: No, not that cream cheese. The Tofutti cream cheese.
Middle-Aged Child of Old Man: Oh my God, dad, they can’t serve Tofutti. New York banned trans fats!
Old Man: What? Tofutti has trans fats?
Middle-Aged Child of Old Man: Jesus, this happened over a year ago! That’s it, I’m sending you back to the nursing home.
3 years ago