feet away
Nothing gives away your age faster than cracked white heels and gnarly, split, yellow toenails. There is an odd phenomenon that occurs when men retire—for some reason they refuse to wear shoes anymore and instead decide to live out the rest of their lives in sandals. It’s like suddenly they want everyone to bear witness to the hideous crime scene they have going on at the end of each ankle.
When I hit retirement age, I plan to petition the government for a pensioner pedicure subsidy for both men and women. A weekly pedicure for the elderly is a great idea. For a start it prevents an old person’s feet from turning into a pair of festering petri-dish experiments, but more importantly, it provides a much-needed social outing for lonely seniors. After all, the manicurist is the perfect captive audience, trapped at the business end of the pedicure chair while the old person chatters away.
47
Don’t start singing like a Bee Gee
If you are having trouble hitting all the notes in your regular singing voice due to age, taking it up a notch and trying to sing in the key of ‘old lady falsetto’ isn’t going to help. Just turn your volume down and drone along quietly instead.
48
No one wants to hear about your ailments
That doesn’t mean you have to stop talking about them, just be aware that there is not a person in the world who is interested, not even friends the same age as you. The only reason they willingly listen to you talk about your various afflictions is so they can rabbit on about their own ailments the minute your mouth stops moving. It’s a bore exchange.
49
Leave the waitstaff alone
Flirting with waiters half your age is unseemly and could also be viewed as a mild form of solicitation—because waiters will always be polite and often times flirt right back—but it’s only because they want a tip. Ergo, you’re only getting their attention because you’re paying for it.
Men, no matter what age they are, flirt with waitstaff. They do it when they’re young and they keep doing it when they get old. And they always think they’re being incredibly charming. They’re not. For women, however, flirting with waitstaff is only something they tend to take up with enthusiasm once they hit middle age. It’s like they’ve finally found their confidence and suddenly they think it’s a bit cheeky and hilarious to hit on fit, young waiters. But it isn’t. For while the woman may see herself as a real cougar, all the waiter sees is a mangy old housecat yowling for attention.
50
Don’t pretend you don’t need glasses
If you’re holding the menu at arm’s length, you need glasses. If the font on your phone is billboard-sized and can be read by someone at the other end of the train carriage, you really need glasses.
51
Don’t use the word ‘pash’ anymore
Once you are forty, the time for pashing is well past. You can still do it if you must, but please find another word to describe it.
52
Have a mirror right next to the front door
You might not want to look at your ageing self but remember, a mirror is your best friend. And having a mirror right next to the front door, preferably a magnifying mirror, should be mandatory for all people aged forty-five and over. Basically, you want to do a quick check before you leave the house. You’re looking for renegade hairs and they could be anywhere: upper lip and chin for ladies; ears and nose (inside and out) if you’re a man. You want to remove anything that would transfix a small child and have them reaching out to tug it.
You also need to keep an eye out for those random straggly eyebrows that are so long you can only assume they’ve been growing out of your face since birth. How else do you explain the absurd length of them?
Once you’re happy you’re not leaving the house looking like the missing link, then do a quick once-over of your clothes, checking for any food spills. At a certain age, having a food stain down your front is the equivalent of having a sign around your neck that reads, They’re going to put me in a home soon.
53
Men, don’t dye your hair
For some reason, it just doesn’t work for you. And most of you look pretty good grey anyway. Which, personally, I find quite annoying. Men with grey hair are always described as ‘silver foxes’—people use words like ‘sophisticated’ or ‘Clooney-esque’. Whereas when I allow my hair to go grey, the only celebrity I resemble is Meryl Streep in Into the Woods.
A word about open-plan offices
It has been a long time since I’ve had a ‘real’ job and worked full time in a ‘real’ office. My most recent in-office experience was at the ABC during the production of the show that spawned this book, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. In Melbourne, the ABC offices are housed in a brand-new, shiny building in Southbank. It cost a lot of money and I guess they spent most of that money on the outside of the building, which is why they didn’t have enough cash left to pay for any walls inside the building, walls that would help divide the vast open spaces into individual offices for people to work in. I can think of no other reason, other than budget, that would explain why our national broadcaster would inflict one of the most universally reviled working arrangements on their underpaid, overworked and yet surprisingly dedicated and loyal staff. Pretty much the whole of the ABC is open plan. Well, except where the executives work—that part of the office got walls and doors, which the execs must
When I arrived at the ABC and discovered The Weekly office was open plan, I decided to work from home. This was not an arrangement I came to with management; rather, it was the only way I could get any work done. I never told anyone I was working from home, instead, I came in every morning, put my jacket on the back of my chair, scattered a few notes across my desk, placed my bag underneath, then took what I needed and went home to do some work. I was able to get away with this because at the time I lived only ten minutes down the road. So if I got a text or a call saying, ‘Where are you?’ or ‘Can you come to the meeting room for a read-through?’ I would reply, ‘Sure, just grabbing a coffee, back in ten. Smiley face emoji, coffee cup emoji, heart emoji, two exclamation marks.’
Ultimately, I was far more productive working from home than I would have been sitting out in the open among thirty other employees, a lot of whom were making necessary but still very distracting phone calls and some of whom were making distracting and completely unnecessary phone calls.
