I'd only been sixty for a few brief hours and I had my first Senior Moment. Picture the circumstances : it is 10.13 on the morning of Tuesday 17th June 2008 and for the first time I am using my Elderly Person's Bus Pass. As I show my pass to the bus driver I realise that I am unsure of the correct etiquette. I am not referring to where one should park one's Zimmer frame or whether one should raise one's flat cap to the widow-woman on the front seat, but whether one should take a ticket or not. In the past when I have bought day passes, I have noticed that tickets have not been issued, but I am equally sure that I have seen wrinklies with tickets before now. The bus driver glances at my pass and after a moment a ticket emerges from the machine. I take it and walk down the bus to a spare seat towards the back.
All of a sudden I notice the bus isn't moving and I realise that I must have committed some horrific crime against the mores of bus travel. Perhaps I have taken the ticket of the chap who got on the bus after me who is now sat on one of the front seats. I make the long walk back to the front of the bus - offending ticket in hand - in order to put matters right and as I do so I realise that everyone on the bus is looking at me. Just as I reach the driver a sudden realisation descends on me : the bus hasn't set off because the driver - splendid fellow that he is - is waiting for the old-age pensioner to get safely to his seat. The very same old age pensioner who walked to the back of the bus, turned around and walked to the front of the bus, and is now once again turning around and retracing his steps to the anonymity of the back seat.
Just sixty years and a few hours old and I have had my very own Senior Moment : the first of many, I am sure.
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