With age comes wisdom
With age comes wisdom. The senior recipe tester is older than I. And therefore, I assume, wiser.
For instance, he was recently faced with a challenging situation. He took the eldest junior recipe testers to swimming lessons. One was able to change in the boys change room, a place where the senior could render assistance. The other had to change in the opposite gender change room.
Only one junior needed assistance.
Swimming costumes, worn by junior girls, can be complicated affairs. Complicated both for the junior who needs to put it on, and for the seniors who must assist them. By the time our junior emerged from the change room, her face was streaked with tears. On her person she wore a swimming costume that only partially protected her modesty. The straps she had woven into a macrame hanging basket.
The senior was left with an ethical dilemma, eventually resolved by taking the junior into the boys change room where he could assist. The swimming costume was donned and doffed six times. The straps were still ready for a potted plant.
In his wisdom, the senior went straight for the credit card to purchase a costume with less complicated straps. The junior learned to swim, and once she was in the water, the tears blended in.
I recently became the same age as the senior recipe tester. I assumed I would inherit similar wisdom. On my coming of age, I attended a conference in town. I parked the car a short walk to the bus stop and started walking. It was then that I realised I didn't have my conference pass with me.
I walked back to the car, drove back home and retrieved it. I was now a little pushed for time, but figured if I got on a bus quickly I should be ok. I repeated the trip to the bus stop and ran to the bus.
As luck would have it, there was a bus that pulled up at the bus stop just ahead of me. I jumped on board and we rumbled down the road. As we approached the turn onto the freeway into town I instinctively braced myself so as not to squash the lady next to me, or fall off the seat. The bus sailed past the on ramp.
It was then that I realised that I was going to a part of Sydney I never intended to visit that morning.
With age comes wisdom. And dementia, apparently.