LITTLE ACHES AND PAINS

I’ve hurt my wrist somehow. I think I must have slept on it funny or something; it’s hard to type.

Little aches and pains like these seem more frequent these days. I don’t like it.

And it’s tempting to peer over your spectacles at a young person, and wisely tell them to ‘enjoy being young, while you can,’ isn’t it?

It doesn’t help though. They look blankly back as if their inner monologue is saying, ‘OK, Grandad’ with a sort of disbelief that it will also happen to them. It’s also a bit awkward for them. How are they supposed to respond to that?

Someone, a Gen Z I supposed, posted a picture of a grey-haired, bespectacled man poking a smartphone with his index finger. He was wearing high-belted jeans and a checkered shirt and his expression was puzzled concentration. The meme (who knows if that’s a millennial term that’s already out of fashion) was: “When old people use smartphones it always looks like they’re trying to defuse a bomb”

I think it’s a bit disrespectful to be honest. Technology moves fast, but the more change you’ve seen, the harder it is to keep up. That’s the system. That’s how eighteen-month-old babies know how to swipe left and pinch to zoom. It’s also why boomers have landlines and why Gen X are all over flipbook. There’s no need to be rude about it.

Anyway, my wrist hurts.