The Moral of this story ...

I am sixty-six years old.

There is no getting away from it.  

But I had not realized it quite- everything feels just the same as it always has. But occasionally something happens to point out to me that I am no longer middle aged- I am actually considered ‘elderly’. There has of course been my ‘smart’ TV in London which was hooked up to Amazon and Netflix and various other bodies that informed it, somehow, of the fact that I was born in 1955. Therefore it used to roll the most annoying adverts all the time: ‘Have you thought about your Will?’; ‘This is a good time to plan your Cremation’; ‘Just check out this marvellous contraption for getting into the bath’; Special price on Stannah chairlifts- hurry!’ And Facebook too kept popping up with ads about incontinence panties…but that apparently starts for women who are only fifty. I had been too shy to mention being solicited about incontinence relief, (let me just clarify I am thankfully  not in need of it)  so was very glad when a very glamorous friend of mine aged 52 ‘spoke out’ about getting the same treatment. (Yes, yes, I know that if you read this and you are under forty, you will think that being fifty is the end of the world- but believe me- life  is sometimes only starting then...)Nevertheless, although this was all faintly annoying, it was endurable. Until something happened tonight that made me lose all composure.

I had been on a free guided tour of Siena- to do with Dante yet again- this time rather specialized: it concerned Dante’s Siena connections – the great families of Siena that he knew. The tour was intended for Italians, and particularly the Sienese. I noticed a rather old woman who was on her own, just like me, and she seemed to be enjoying the tour. The excellent guide was ‘interrupted’ three times during our progress through a freezing Siena- a great local poet/rapper/actor  gave  some rather idiosyncratic interpretations of certain passages in Dante to everyone’s delight:

 And this evening I had booked a ticket for a performance at the Teatro dei Rinnovati, which is situated in the Palazzo Pubblico. It was a dance performance ‘Les Nuits Barbares’ choreographed by Herve Koubi to traditional Algerian  music as well as  Mozart, Faure, and Wagner. This was quite a treat and I had been looking forward to it. When I arrived I was surprised that I kept being ushered to some side stairs that led me higher and higher, until I ended up in the forth and last circle, far off to one side. I looked down and noticed  that there was plenty of space left in much better positions. Then I looked at who else was sitting on my level, and realized that the only one on the whole level sharing this dismal position was the old woman I had noticed from the Dante tour! I had bought the best ticket available, but, always with an eye for a bargain, I had claimed the over sixty-five discount of 3 euros, just like I expect the lady from the tour had done. This had clearly been a mistake- two old women arriving separately on their own- we were put away as far as possible!  I saw red, and stomped out, just as it was about to start.  I was immediately intercepted by one of the ushers who attempted to calm me down. I am quite proud of the fact that I managed to be very angry all in Italian, while I was led down to the ticket office. There I continued to splutter venom in what must have been quite comprehensible Italian for the ticket office staff were most apologetic and asked me if I had booked online- as if that was a mistake?- I was finally led to one of the last places in one of the first rows- and meanwhile I had also been able to ‘rescue’ the other ‘old lady’ from outer space : ‘e l’altra povera vecchia signora, voi la lacherete li, tutta sola? Maledizone!’Once installed, I noticed with some gratification that the lady had also  been moved to a seat a few pews away…!

It took me a certain amount of time to calm down but the spectacle was good enough to soothe me: thirty beautiful male dancers performing something between acrobatics, break-dancing and ballet conjuring up tribal scenes that seemed to belong more closely further south on the African continent than  Algeria, whose  music was sometimes intertwined with Mozart’s or Faure’s Requiems. It all worked, and as I left I managed a little smile to the lady in the ticket office who I had insulted previously.

The moral of this story: NEVER be stingy enough to try to save three euros because you are over sixty-five!- at least not if you are a woman…