Laughing About Old Age

Why We Do It

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

I always swore I that when I got old, 1) I wouldn’t lie about my age and 2) I wouldn’t laugh about my age or old age in general. I have been good about 1), but not about 2).

I hated when my father made jokes about how old he was, starting at about age 60: to me it lacked all dignity to mock himself and his cohort like this. It wasn’t funny (to anyone not his age, anyway) to refer to himself as “an old geezer,” it was just stupid and self-abasing, or so I thought. He also made jokes about his bald head, which he acquired at about age 30.

Now that I qualify as old (actually, despite appearances, I over-qualify!), I’ve discovered I love making jokes about how old I am (an elder, a crone!) and about old age in general. (Luckily, I am not bald.)  

One of my favorite jokes is: “70 may be the new 50, but ten o’clock is the new midnight!” This is funny because it’s so true: suddenly most of my friends and I are going to sleep really early. And it skewers the fantasy that we “really” are 50, despite our vegetable smoothies and lengthy workouts: ahem, we are yawning at 9:45.

Another old age joke tickles me so much I included in my recent novel, Cybill Unbound. A very old man and woman appear before the judge. The old man says, “Judge, we want a divorce.” “A divorce! How old are you?” “I’m 90. And she’s 98.” The judge asks incredulously “And you want a divorce?” The wife nods vigorously. “We hate each other.” The husband adds, “We’ve hated each other for years.” The judge asks in amazement, “So why did you wait until now to get a divorce?” The wife says, “We were waiting until the children were dead!”

A joke loves to overturn accepted truths; a joke gets its punch from surprise. (What parent waits for their children to die?)  But a joke also consoles the joker: if we can laugh about something, it makes it less powerful. Laughing about one’s fears is one way to cope with them, as in the following joke. What happens when two old men meet? They have an “organ recital.” “How’s your stomach? How’s your kidney? How’s your liver?” If we can joke about it, it isn’t so bad.   

Most jokes work by subverting the expected; by showing us the reality behind the high ideal. We hope old age will lead us to wisdom, while all too often it leads us to senility. Here’s a final old age joke, which is probably in poor taste, as are so many funny things.

To celebrate the matriarch’s 85^th birthday, her family takes her to the Grand Canyon, where she’s always wanted to go. They all have a wonderful time camping out and marveling at the scenery and taking a hike and even a donkey ride. They have such a good time that the next year, they decide to go on another trip with grandma. So they ask her where they should go. “You know,” she says, “I’ve always wanted to go the Grand Canyon.”