We old folks are often given impossible task. Marketers, newspapers, cable television companies, news channels, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers, etc., all absolutely hate us. They give us these impossible task. As a public service to marketers and other that deal with we old folks, here are some things that old people can’t do:

1. Old people can’t get to the telephone before you hang up unless you are a telemarketer.

2. Old people can’t read the small print on prescription drug bottles, the instructions for safe use, or the dosage for nonprescription drugs.

We can’t read the instructions for putting together that bamboo bird cage (not because it is in Chinese but because the print size is minus 6).

We can’t read any of the small print that flies down the television screen or printed in slick magazines telling us that the drug being suggested may cause diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, and sore gums.

We also can’t read the conditions for leasing or buying that new car being pitched on television or in newspaper ads.

3. We can’t hear news people when they lower their voices or decide to mumble as they do everyday on our Twin Falls station, channel news stations, and for dramatic, on regular TV programs.

4. We can’t watch bad news. (Anyway, I can’t. My wife always changes the channel.)

5. We can’t lift over 5 pounds so don’t suggest 15 pound barbells to help us get our muscles “back in trim.”

6. We can’t open packages containing things we really want to get our hands on like a new television remote, a DVD, an electric car, a CD player.

The plastic is so thick that our carpet knives don’t even cut it.

Listen to this you packaging engineers: Old folks don’t have acetylene torches.

7. We can’t follow the instructions for putting up that shed in the back yard.

We have to go back and remove Part 100653 and put in Part 100458 then put Part 100653 in again, etc.

This always takes 45 minutes.

The shed is supposed to go up in 3 hours.

It takes us 3 days if we can get our children to “take over” and finish the project.

8. We can’t see what is on television because of the brainless twits on the cable company’s television guide channel.

A field of only two channels passes by at the bottom of our screen while the twits distract us from watching the bottom of the screen.

It takes 5 seconds for the two channels to whip by and reveal two more channels.

One blink and you have to start over.

Also, you have to watch all the digital listings pass by before the analog channels appear again.

That’s why I hate my cable company even if they have very nice employees that don’t want me to switch to you-know-what. (I had one of those things on the top of my house and the cable guy took it down and through it in his truck. I never got a check for the thing.)

I want the old screen back that shows a full screen of analog channels and nothing else.

I know. If I would add the digital channels I wouldn’t have this problem. I could click around like on the you-know-what. Well, I’ll tell you a secret. That doesn’t work for me. When I’m at my grandkid’s house, they have to find the right channel for me. (They always find something they like better than what I want to watch.)

Well, if I switch to satellite I will have less of a problem.

(P.S.: My cable company doesn’t answer hate email.)

9. We don’t understand why a zillion companies are selling the MedicareRx Prescription Drug Plan.

When we get to the drug store we find that either they don’t take “your plan,” you can’t have the drugs anyway because of some medical mumbo jumbo, and that our drugs are in Tier 3 which have a higher co-pay than our old plan.

(We know that President loves the plan. That one reason why we can’t love President Bush.)

10. We can’t copy that telephone number we need to call to get Great Battles of World War II for only $9.95.

We wait for 25 minutes to get the number and it flashes by before we find our ballpoint pen won’t write (which we tested on the newspaper while waiting.)

So, let’s summarize:

Old people can’t see as well as young people.

Old people can’t hear as well as young people.

Old people can’t think as fast as young people.

Old people can’t memorize as fast as young people.

Old people can’t move as fast as young people.

Old people have aches and pains that distract them.

Are you great communicators writing all of this down?

The End