At the time I write this, I have been home from work for about an hour. It was a particularly busy day, since the kennels is full to capacity with holiday season. Someone had been roped in to help me. (I'm not sure exactly what the context is; whether she is a relative of my boss or a relative of a family friend. At any rate, she is a lot younger than me, not even twenty.) I could certainly have done with help, but the truth is that she was less help than she was hindrance, despite being pleasant and willing. I missed the previous guy who worked there. (For all his faults, which eventually got him fired, he knew how to get a team of people going and keep them going until the job was done. He used to complain that I was slow, so he would have been highly frustrated by this individual.)

I know that, as I've got older, I've lost some of the energy I had as a teenager and certainly as a kid. In my current state, I certainly can't be accused of being active or fit (despite how much exercise I do get both on and off the job) and have been laid back and sedentary to the point of being accused of laziness in the past. One thing that does baffle me, though, is the lack of speed and stamina of people my own age and, worse, younger. If they are like this now, what will they be like at sixty or eighty? Not just dead slow, but dead, most likely ...

I used to think I'd struggle to keep up with someone much my junior. Now I'm wondering why they struggle to keep up with me (and I'm no Riddick or  Speedy Gonzales). Je ne comprends pas! I know there's more to life than the measuring of speed (myself being a case in point), but come on and hurry the fuck up! I have a lot to do and I don't have all day in which to do it, particularly if that includes waiting for someone else to move their arse.