Preparing For The Future

With my apologies to Jenny Joseph and my advice to the Alberta Liberal Party

When I am old I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run with my stick along public railings, and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit!

You can wear terrible shirts and grow fatter and eat three pounds of sausages at ago, or only bread and pickles for a week, and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry, and pay our rent and not swear in the street, and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

Maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple!