Who’s up for a multiple choice question?
I know, I know! You’re all OH MY GOD, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?
Remember my 84 year old 85 year old aunt? The one who gets irritated with me because I appear to be physically incapable of mentioning her on this blog without referring to her age? The one who can’t see above sales racks, who drives aimlessly around parking lots while my mother plays enraged air traffic controller?
This one’s in honor of my Aunt VeVe.
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The following statements are all true. Which statement is best supported by the above photograph?
- Aunt VeVe loses 1-2 inches of height per year and is now slightly taller than her niece’s dishwasher.
- She is going to turn 86 this year.
- Aunt VeVe, that is. Not her niece. Or the dishwasher.
- Aunt VeVe refused to believe she was going to turn 86 this year because her cardiologist told her she was turning 85, despite the fact that she was born in 1924.
- She admonished her niece to be respectful after her niece voiced suspicions that her aunt’s cardiologist might just be an idiot.
- Her niece took a deep breath and then pencil to paper whereby she performed actual, real live math by subtracting 1924 from 2010, eventually coming up with a difference of 86.
- After declaring “So?” Aunt VeVe then asked her sweaty and mentally exhausted niece if she’d like an aspirin or a paper bag to breath into. Maybe a nap?
- Her niece politely declined, even though she was flushed and slightly light headed from all the exertion.
- Aunt VeVe proceeded to disregard the logic and maintained that she would turn 85 this year simply because her cardiologist said so.
- Her niece’s left eye started to twitch.
- In an attempt to prove her assertion once and for all, Aunt VeVe took the same pencil to new paper and, starting with the year 1924, wrote down every single year up through and including the year 2010 and then wrote down her respective age at each year, beginning with an amniotic fluid covered zero.
- By the time Aunt VeVe got to 1948, both of her niece’s eyes were twitching.
- By the time she got to 1963, her niece developed sudden onset Tourettes and spontaneously shouted out streams of profanity regarding cardiologists and their mothers and the specific places into which they could all jam their stethoscopes.
- By the time she got to 1979, her niece had grabbed her aunt’s yarn basket and crocheted a reasonable facsimile of a cardiologist and then proceeded to stab him multiple times in the heart with shiny blue knitting needles.
- By the time she got to 1999, her niece didn’t care if her aunt was going to turn 86 or 2, she just wanted the blood to stop gushing around her cerebral cortex and the red and purple polka dotted pygmy elephants flying around the room to go away and those goddamn screaming lambs to SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
- By the time she got to 2010, Aunt VeVe discovered that not only was she going to turn 86 this year, but also that her niece had an uncanny ability to spin her head around 360° multiple times while singing I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt and riding backwards on a phantom kangaroo all around the living room.
- Aunt VeVe bowls once a week.
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12 thoughts on “Time for a multiple choice quickie! Or longie. It’s the Octogenarian In Denial version!”
Love Aunt VeVe!
I’m going to go with 17 – because the number “86” most closely resembles my bowling score, and I prefer like in a place where your 86-year-old aunt’s bowling score is not better than mine (although just about everyone else’s is).
Birthdate confusion is not limited to octogenarians, however. I gave a good friend a year of her life back as a birthday present earlier this year. She spent all of 2009 telling people that she was 35 years old. In 2010, she mentions to me that she was born in 1975… and I had to do the math *on paper* to demonstrate that NOW she is 35. 🙂 Luckily, it didn’t take quite as long.
Happy upcoming birthday (?) to your Aunt.
Ugh. Hit submit too soon. Prefer “to live” in a place. Darn fingers don’t move as fast as my brain. 😛
My grandmother bowled twice a week until she was 91, when she sprained her wrist & never recovered enough strength in it to lift the ball.
I sometimes have to do the math to figure out how old I’ll be
I’m out of fingers and toes to count how old I am. I just ask other people.
You might want to re-think your reaction to Aunt Veve, considering the fact that she is spry enough to bowl. I’d like to say I am sympathetic with you, but I live with my 76 year old mother. She was born New Year’s Eve in 1933 and even though I am very good at doing math in my head, other people struggle with the idea of figuring out her age, which amuses us no end.
Her mother, my beloved grandmother, lied about her age for her ENTIRE LIFE. She was born at home so it was easy. She always said said she was born in 1900. Only after she died did we discover she was born in 1899.
I am 48, and I have gray hair which I refuse to dye, and I quit wearing makeup because it collects in my wrinkles. I am the first woman in 3 generations to be very clear about my age.
Mother swears I look a lot like the mailman.
Go Dee!
*giggles* Andy, that was hilarious. Although perhaps you might consider some vervain tea for that twitch of yours. And a neck brace.
You do realise that you are morphing into your Aunt Verve, and one day will be just like her 🙂
On that happy though, I will wish you a wonderful weekend!
I’m going to go with the knitting needle thing! No no wait! I choose #11! Except, you know, it’s still very confusing because unless you’re like, born on New Year’s day at midnight, you’re always two ages every year.
HAPPY 85TH BIRTHDAY, AUNT VEVE! She can be 85 if she wants. Personally, I think she should think if she’s going to mess with her age she should “go bigger” (or in this case a lot lower). How about 75? I give her SO much credit for being so sharp! At 41 I can’t remember my age and constantly have to stop and ask myself (out loud which unnerves some folks) “how old am I, again?” Then I have to do the math. I hate math. I have to do the same thing with each of my three boys. I am constantly forgetting how old they are turning on each impending birthday. I figure it’s either early dementia or the peroxide from my highlights has finally seeped through to my brain. So, from my stance Aunt Veve sounds like an incredible and amazing 45 year old woman! Go Aunt Veve!
that is supposed to be “personally, I think if she’s going to mess with her age she should “go bigger”. God, I need an editor.
hahahahahahahaha! Your aunt sounds hilarious!