Here They Are:

* The ability to lose things, animal, material and imaginary!

* The ability to get the wrong end of the stick!

* The ability to avoid winning any raffles, games, lotteries, hearts, or even coming as high as in the top ten!

* The ability to lodge oneself up the noses of all around me!

* The ability to be the only one out of 16 lads walking down the promenade at 0600hrs in the morning, who get bitten by the lone wandering mongrel dog that attacked us!

* The ability to be injured and immobile, and still fall off of the hospital trolley!

* The ability to fall asleep on the bus and wake up at the local Bus Station depot, unsure of who got the bigger shock, me or the poor bus cleaner!

* The ability to get peoples names wrong, and/or forget peoples names on a regular basis!

* The ability to misplace hearing aids, spectacles, remote controls, memory sticks, camera, pens, bus-passes, medications, mobile phones, keys, clothing, hats, and even spoons!

* The ability to end up with odd socks at the launderette on every visit!

* The ability to take me 6 morning medications at night, and your 8 evening medications in the morning!

* The ability to go into a room, and forget more often than not what you went into that room for!

* The ability to ring the wrong number on the telephone!

* The ability to be completely ignored at Bank queues, Business office queues, Job Centre queues, Hospital queues, Shop counter queues, Inquiry desk queues, Café queues, Pub queues, Council Benefits qeues and by the general public at large!

* The ability to lose total and absolute control of all and any emissions of wind from me anus!

* The ability to scare people horrendously when I smile and say ‘Good Morning’ to them!

* The ability to lipread wrongly!

* The ability to get on the wrong bus!

* The ability to maintain me life of sorts, despite your constant failings and depression!

* The ability to tell the truth – this will get you nowhere, I know, it just confuses the bosses and politicians!

* The ability to want to help others – a futile quality!

* The ability to eat however much one puts on the plate!

* The ability to almost see me feet looking down passed me ever expanding bouncy belly!

* The ability to walk past a Barbers shop without noticing his prices!

* The ability to remember things from years ago!

* The ability to forget things that happened an hour ago!

* The ability to enjoy using carbolic soap!

* The ability to realise that the adage ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is valid!

* The ability to realise that ‘Old age people are measured as an economic liability and a social burden!

* The ability to realise that ‘Old age is a mental attitude as well as a physical problem’!

* The ability to become a sociopath, and enjoy it!

* The ability to realise that: When you live by yourself, all of your annoying habits are suddenly gone.

* The ability to understand what W. Somerset Maugham meant by ‘An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones’

* The ability to accept and dwell in ones missed opportunities!

* The excellently honed and perfected ability to have the hospital staff in tears of laughter!

* An ability to present myself as a target for Pavement Cyclist and mobility scooter drivers everytime I venture out.

If you are lucky enough to live long enough, many of these attributes will come to you, wanted or not.

So make the best of things now kids, and good luck!