God's Waiting Room

Getting old does not have to suck.  Just ask the residents at Broadmead Retirement Community in Hunt Valley, Maryland.  Having enough money to buy in and stay in won't, of course, make you automatically happy but it certainly will keep you unbothered.  And that is a state of well being I can see myself actually achieving.  Self actualization may never be in the cards for me so I can be content with living on the bottom floors of the pyramid.  And Broadmead does safety and social so good that one might actually have a shot at esteem and self actualization in the eventide of their existence.

I witnessed it for myself in the smiles and cheerful dispositions of even the most marginally ambulatory of the matures I encountered while visiting my in-laws.  The entire place could easily be mistaken for Stepford Connecticut 40 years later.  Even down to the front gate which, we were ominously warned, closes at 9:30 PM after which who knows what would have become of us.  Perhaps, like the unwitting wives of that fabled community, I would have been drugged and had a chip implanted in me.  Then programmed to blithely fabricate dentures there for the rest of my useful dental life.   Another obsequious robot programmed to meet the needs of this coterie of hyper content senior citizens.

The cast of characters I met in just one afternoon and evening was enough to fill me with such a sense of joyful anticipation that I can barely wait till I am 85 years old.  I am ready to retire there now. And if Medicare pays for my very own POV then I say who needs more than one pair of shoes?  It's just a 5 minute trip from your independent living apartment to the dining hall and if you forgot to plug in your POV then the courtesy golf cart is just one free phone call away.  And between the rocket scientists and brain surgeons who have retired here, fascinating dinner conversation will never be wanting.  Yesiree, if this is God's waiting room, then take my copay and pass me the "People" because I won't mind waiting.