Old as the Hills

The talking heads on television claim that Americans are on edge because of the bad economy, but as I was driving home this evening, I think I nailed the real reason that there is so much anxiety.
It first dawned on me when the car next to me was booming bass so loud that it made my entire car vibrate. I looked over expecting to see a teenager determined to go deaf before he got old enough to vote, but instead saw a gray-haired, shrunken man peering over the steering wheel of what must have been a forty thousand dollar Chrysler. Clearly deaf already, like so many senior citizens, he had to turn his car stereo up enough to feel the vibrations of the music.
Then, at another stop sign, an over-the-hill driver decided that traffic laws were optional, and turned through the intersection, ignoring whatever other driver might have thought was his turn. Old folks strike again.
That's when I realized that anyone who wakes up with aches and pains, who is confused that everything they learned in school is obsolete, that is more interested in watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie than in the people arould them is not a happy person. And with an aging population, America is full of us.
Yes, that big population bubble is now at the age where we have to admit that we are getting old, and we don't like it. We don't like bifocals or eating oatmeal for breakfast. We don't like turnabouts replacing stoplights or waitresses calling us 'honey'. We especially don't like the ever changing technology. Once you have something that works, can't it wear out before it's obsolete?
So that is the real reason America is undergoing a period of unrest. A huge percentage of the population is confused and in pain.
Nancy Sherer