Secrets of the Elderly

Your doughty author ventured this afternoon on a walk along the promenade.

The promenade is a Victorian invention designed largely for all that is hideous and malformed about the human race to parade itself in full uncompromising view (it also serves as a handy repository for dog poo, so do take care as you gawp at the collection of freaks on display not to find yourself stepping in a Douglas Hurd). However, the main function of the promenade is to act as a sort of powerful attractor of the elderly. The elderly are drawn to sea-side environs like teenage girls round Edward Cullen. It is here, on the promenade, that it suddenly struck your author that in the affinity between promenades and the elderly lies a secret.

Have you ever noticed the sheer number of commemorative benches along promenades? There they sit, unassuming, bearing such legends as ‘In Memory of Albert Bickerstaff (1932-2009)’. Ostensibly commemorating a loved one in this way implies that, in their memory, other members of the public can take a well-earned sit down and admire the view that Mr Albert Bickerstaff used to come and admire along with his tartan-print thermos of tea and tin-foil-wrapped egg sandwiches. Ah, look at that sun setting over the coast, and can’t you almost smell those eggs (that, in fact, may just be sewage leaking into the sea, but use your imagination, for old Mr Bickerstaff’s sake). But no. For you see, the elderly have a dark secret. Once they have been on the promenade for an entire day – taking up at least two spaces with their Austin Metro – they metamorphose into benches. No shit. There’s enough of that on the promenade already (come to the promenade, for benches and shit. Sit and shit, if you will).

Yes, the elderly spend so much time upon the promenade, and such is their attraction towards it, that they metamorphose into benches. After some time, they will evolve a commemorative plaque marking their former identity. At the promenade you must take the utmost care not to stand in any one spot for too long, lest you should also turn into a wooden public seat – such is the powerful resonance of the spell at work.

The ramifications of this discovery go beyond the promenade. Now we see how pointless are those signs that, on public transport, exhort us, as tired or rain-sodden or hungover as we may be, to give up our seats to the elderly. The elderly need only summon the power to transform themselves at will into a bench, or arm-chair, or wicker-work patio furniture, and rather than demanding a seat they would provide still more accommodation. Selfish bastards.

And so, go about your day taking up seats on public transport with impunity.  Of course, if you see pregnant or physically impaired individual, do give up your seat immediately. But other than that, spread yourself across as many seats as possible. It is your civic duty.