Because I Can

This week I released my first manuscript upon the world - I have written a book about my experiences working in a retirement village. It is still being edited, and I may add a few more little bits and pieces, but the bulk of it is in place for the world to criticise enjoy see.

So, today you get to share one of the stories. I present to you: The Lifestyle Village, Chapter 4 - "I have a new job". The entire book, with several funnier stories (if you're interested) can be read online for free at http://www.authonomy.com/books/33488/the-lifestyle-village/read-book/#chapter.

I have a new job

I have a new job. It's working in the community kitchen of the retirement village where my aunt does the wages. Sorry, Lifestyle Village. I can't call it a retirement village. Those are for old people. It's a Lifestyle Village, which automatically makes 90-year-olds "not old". It's all about image. Or something.

 I have nothing to do with my aunt, which is good, since my mother and I nearly came to blows working together at her work... but I digress. I'm a combination kitchenhand/waitress. Go me. Actually, I like it. The weekend pay is better than I was getting in tech support for sitting at a desk and I bring home more leftover food than I could possibly eat. Free food rocks.

 I get to serve them all in the dining rooms. They're actually not a bad bunch at all. Most of them have all their marbles, albeit left over from 1972... the dinner table conversation can be quite amusing. On the weekend they had been discussing some actor from nineteen yickety two (I missed who) and that some movie of his had been on, and others were disappointed to have missed it on the tv. Enter our hero, Iris, who announced, "You're all welcome to come and watch it in my flat, I have it on Dee Vee Dee." Muttered discussion and awe as they all digested this new fangled news. I doubt many of them even have a VCR.

 The amputee lady, Doris, has more spunk than the rest of them combined. "Well if you're finished boasting," she said, "I'll have a boast too. I have a new stereo, and it's got a Woofer."

 This was met with gobstruck silence as they looked at each other in total ignorance. I had to leave the room to avoid laughing aloud. I listened from the kitchen. Finally one of them timidly asked the inevitable question.

 "What's a Woofer?"

 The discussion, of course, was all very serious, and they all learned about how it's important to emphasise the bass.





 Marlene is knitting me some bedsocks.