Classy Old Lady

While I was waiting for the Disabled transit to take me home from the neuro appointment a couple of days ago, I met a neat old woman.

She was sitting on one of the benches smoking a cigarette. She was appropriately dressed, medium length gray hair in place, a touch of make up.

I wheeled up to her, lit my own cigarette, and offered my now standard line, “Pretty soon we’re going to have to cross the Mexican Border to smoke a cigarette.”

She chuckled, and then went into her own soliloquy of smoking vs non-smoking experiences. I listened as she reiterated my own fav litanies; if smoking were so deadly, how would all these people still be alive or even born, as we ALL smoked up until the 1960’s, why are people so paranoid about second hand smoke when our air and water are so polluted, etc.

Then she came up with the quintessential line: “I’m 72, obviously I am not going to die young. They can take their paranoia, and go jump in a lake. I am old enough to do what I want.”

Wisdom, experience, and pith from the mouth of an elder!