grandparents

a message from 2082

Grandparents

Now it is 2082 and yes, I am still alive. I was 130 this year. My wife, Devi, is 129 and still as lovely as ever. My daughter, Duodenia, was 102 this year. She has twenty-two great, great grandchildren who are great, great, great grandchildren to me, of course. My son, Gregory, is no longer with the politburo; he retired last year at age 104.

It has been fifty years now that I have not had a glandular secretion, which was hailed in 2030 as the “gland solution.” This was the turning point in my life as it has been for all us “old people.”

Old people, those over sixty, now outnumber everyone else ten-to-one. I have been living on social security for sixty-five years and have collected $275,438,000 in benefits only having paid in $48,000 into the system. My great, great, great grandson, Louis Perfait, told me the other day that his social security taxes were 92% of his pay. He acted surprised when I told him before the uprising in 2050, social security taxes were 99.98% of everyone’s pay. I told him he should consider himself lucky. Not so lucky as myself, of course, he is only thirty-two, but compared to the young people in the 30s and 40s, he’s better off. Didn’t we get that law passed obligating all young people to come to their grandparents’ house for dinner on Sunday so they’d get a good meal? You’d think they’d be thankful.

So, I say to Louis, and others similarly situated, remind that stranger standing on the corner that you are middle aged. Tell him how astonished you are that your body is thirty-five years old and still, to a certain extent, functions. It is an artifact. Historical.

It will be with you, forever, or so it seems.

Earlier this year they loaded my DNA into a spaceship, and sent me off to Alpha Centauri, to sample their beaches, virtually.

Bon Voyage!

Feel free to pick up the tab, kiddies!

THE END

Reviews

[Marie]

Amusing.