Tuesday Ten

What if we lived in a world where being old was more desirable than being young?

1. The skincare industry as we know it would collapse. For a while, everybody would be smoking and tanning to achieve that cool, wrinkly look; then a whole range of aging products would appear in the chemist.

2. Presumably something similar would happen with plastic surgeons. I wonder if somebody would invent a facelift technique that adds crows feet. Perhaps back teeth could be removed to give that slightly sunken-cheeked look.

3. Young, nubile models would be replaced by their grandparents. Perhaps this would impact on fashion: lower heels. Warmer fabrics.

4. Companies would start to invest in solutions for problems faced by older people. Amazing leaps forward in technology would occur in the fields of hearing aids and bifocals. We might even see the invention of laser surgery to correct far sightedness. Maybe cheaper dental implants.

5. Trips to the grandparents would no longer be a thing to be endured. Hours would be spent looking through old photo albums and hanging on every word about what life was like in the olden days. Kids would retell these stories at school, and try and trump each other with cool grandparent stories.

6. Saga would be the new Club 18-30.

7. People would fake ID to make themselves seem older. I know this isn't much different to today, but it's generally only undeage people that bother with this. In the world I am picturing, I lie about my age and tell people I'm actually 39, whilst hopping on a sunbed every other day and smoking heavily to try and catch up to my fake age.

8. People might adopt powdered wigs, like the Georgians, to look naturally grey. Hair dye would become obsolete, as everybody embraced their greying locks with grace. I won't make the obvious joke about blue rinses because I can't remember the last time I saw one.

9. In relationships with big age gaps, people will start congratulating the younger member of the partnership on their good fortune in landing such a catch, instead of the older member.

10. Something would happen to the retirement age. I can't decide what. Part of me thinks it would go down, because the government would be heavily courting the over-60 vote and would probably have a larger percentage of over-60s. Part of me thinks it would go up, as older people achieved greater status and therefore issues faced by older people, such as ageism in the work place, would disappear. Older people would find it easier to gain promotion and be actively encouraged to remain in the work place, thus giving them a greater incentive to stay employed. That would mean more tax payers (for the moment I conveniently forget that more workers does not equal more jobs) which would lead to an economic boost, possibly funding higher state pensions.
In fact, if the over-60 vote meant more to the government, there's a whole boatload of legislation that might make it through the House. Well, there's a can of worms.


This was a bit silly, but in the words of Sheldon Cooper, what's life without whimsy?

Four days until skiing. Just sayin'.