Taking the Stairs

I just saw a commercial advertising an electronic stair lift that you sit in that takes you to the top or bottom of your stairs. The commercial uses fake old folks actors, and you know they’re fake because they are all happy and grinning like opossums while they make the automated trek up the staircase. 

What is annoying to me is the speed, or lack thereof, by which the senior citizen ascends the stairs. They could literally crawl, fall, stop, drop, and roll up (or down) those stairs faster. 

I know not what course others may take, but I’d want to ascend or descend those steps at a faster speed than I could using my own power. In fact, since you have to strap yourself in, may as well make it like a carnival ride. Something that startles you, gets that adrenaline flowing or makes you gasp or your stomach flutter. I’m no engineer but something spring loaded or sling shot-esque with an expectation of ‘Hold my beer and watch this’ while landing safely onto or into something to break your fall. Regardless, the point would be to get there quick. When I was a kid I could take a flight of steps using one butt cheek on the railing and and sliding to the landing. To quote movie legend Bette Davis: 

“The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

There needs to be a Septu-Octo-generian equivalent. 

Why? 

I’ll tell you why, and will do it faster than that stairlift can.

The speed as depicted on the commercial is 1/2 that of paint drying or grass growing. 

Old folks, God bless em, have one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel. They are on borrowed time. They’ve no choice but take it a day at the time, just like the drunks. 

In the elapsed time of taking the stair lift, that person could expire, miss an entire meal, a television show, and possibly an entire lunar phase. 

And what about the bladder and or the lower GI issues that go hand in glove (no pun intended) with those nearly four score? Do I need to paint a picture? Gramps has settled in on his stair lift, fully restrained, and begins his ascent. On stair 3, which is roughly 5 minutes into the ride, he gets the urge to go. By stair 5 he is in full emergency mode and by stair 8 the deed(s) are done. Gramps is still in the chair requiring either a wardrobe or adult diaper change, and now the additional task to mop the stairs. Again, look how much time has passed because the stair chair has been traveling at the speed of a snail. 

No sir. Not me. I want to fly, flail or be flung up and down the stairs.  I ain’t got time to be old I have stuff to do. 

Like mop them stairs.