What’s funny about old age?

Myrtle and Mabel, retired, widowed ranch women, recently entered a senior center.

After spending what seemed like 100 years cooking for the three H’s – husbands, hired hands, hundreds of holidays doin’s and countless potlucks – Myrtle and Mabel thoroughly enjoy taking advantage of the senior center’s inexpensive meals.

While M & M are sociable, they also enjoy (or suffer from) a love of theater, especially comedy.

Which explains how it came about that they contrived to put on a vaudeville show titled: “what’s funny about old age? Well, just about everything.”

Here’s one of the “song/act” skits done as a duet by M & M. Props included canes, armless rocking chairs, newspaper, and Myrtle’s concertina.

• Myrtle: Ya know, Mabel, old age pretty much sucks.

Mabel: (pretending to read newspaper) Well, it says here that regular naps prevent old age.

Myrtle: OK, but not while I’m driving.”

Concertina and thump cane.

• Mabel: Ya know, Myrtle, I’ve learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper.

Myrtle: Yeah? How’s that?

Mabel: The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Myrtle: Old age is kinda sad . . . I mean, I’ve had to dye my hair for the last 40 years.

Mabel: It says here (reading newspaper), a Frenchman feller invented a cure for gray hair.

Myrtle: Really? What is it?

Mabel: The guillotine.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Mabel: Well, after all, Myrtle, maybe it’s a good thing we’re getting old and a little forgetful.

Myrtle: Now, why ever’d you say somethin’ like that?!

Mabel: Well, sooner or later we’ll be put in a home for the dotty and demented. Heck, how much fun could it be if we’re stuck in a geriatric ward just so’s we could live a few extra years?!

Concertina and thump cane.

• Myrtle: When I was in my middle years, I worried about stuff, but now I miss middle age. Back then, I believed I’d feel better in the morning.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Mabel: My Granny was really old. She lived to almost a hundred and she was tough. She buried three husbands and two of them were just napping.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Myrtle: Ya know, Mabel, aging gracefully is the subtle way of saying you’re slowly looking worse.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Mabel: When you’re old, where should you keep your fire extinguisher?

Myrtle: Close to the candles on your birthday cake.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Mabel: Myrtle, do you remember your first car?

Myrtle: Yeah, it was a covered wagon.

Concertina and thump cane.

• Mabel: (sighing) Yeah, and nobody harasses you when you’re old.

Myrtle and Mabel: (climbing to their feet, stepping to stage center, recite in unison) Hey, guys! When goin’ out around the town Saturday night harassing . . . remember us old gals a-lingerin’ here And give us a squeeze in passing!

M & M freely admit they stole some of the jokes off the internet, but they don’t care.