The granny pissis invasion
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By Riku Siivonen
My wife came back from her morning swim at the Yrjönkatu indoor swimming pool somewhat amused, even though swimming had been difficult.
There were a number women of pension age swimming in a wide front, slow enough to talk, of course. In loud voices they exchanged news about diseases, gossip, and gave a few choice words about "that fat woman from Rovaniemi".
My wife has a name for women like that: "granny pissis*". By that she means noisy hordes of old ladies who do not care what other people think.
In response I read to her an article in the morning paper. A geriatric psychologist wrote in the article that people do not become more irritable as they grow old - they simply stop making the effort to avoid annoying others.
This made me think. The ranks of the granny pissis species are set to grow considerably as the ratio between pensioners and those of working age tilts toward the former. What will be the result? If members of the baby boom generation have tried to please up to now, what are they really like?
They are not yet revealing how hard their attitudes are. In Viva, a new popular magazine for retired readers, there is a basic article on trimming the prostate, and about the reverse ejaculations that result from the procedure. The other big pensioners' magazine, ET (with a circulation of more than 900,000), does not appear to have become politicised yet.
Still, living together will not be easy. The ET generation has built this country, and its members will certainly demand the treatment they feel they deserve as senior citizens as well.
When that happens, younger people will probably no longer be able to shop for groceries. When the proportion of queue-jumping grannies becomes really big, it will be impossible to reach the checkout: there will always be someone with "just a couple of small items" to buy.
There will be a radical change in how people use their time. The reason for this will be the granny lag - the extra time that needs to be reserved for all activities, especially in public places. Everything will take a few minutes longer, as the seniors have to use various high-tech terminals themselves, or then merely exchange observations on the weather in painstaking detail.
The granny lag must simply be tolerated. The masses of seniors will certainly hold on to the benefits that they have achieved.
I have also come to the conclusion that the new nuclear power plant and the possible electric cable from Russia are not primarily based on the wishes of industry. The ET generation wants these to make sure that there is enough current to go around when, as pensioners, they turn on their electric sauna stoves at their leisure homes, as well as their floor heating, and their electric ovens, all at the same time.
This is why it is important to watch the facial expressions of political decision-makers with very close scrutiny. Are the smiles fading, and is the sucking up coming to an end? The baby boom generation will not be in power for long, so they will probably make a final effort to secure their pension and care benefits - to empty the company before it goes under.
They probably will not manage to get facelifts subsidised by the Social Insurance Institution, but it is likely that companies providing elderly care services will be favoured in the name of job creation, while defending the welfare state, as pensioners need to have both cheap services and the right to all public health care.
In my parents' age group there are so many well-to-do debt-free frequent visitors to ski resorts, that it would feel downright annoying to pay for their cirrhosis treatments and prostate trims - especially since they invest their loose capital in mutual funds, which in turn invest the money in companies, which lay off their children so that the parents might earn more capital income.
It would seem better if they could take on some of the costs of our children's day care by paying for their own medicines, for instance.
It is a very questionable honour to be the first generation that is poorer than that of their parents.
But perhaps they might still be a bit bitter toward us. After all, we had options to choose from when we were young. But do they still have to block every lane even though they have always had to swim in the same pool?
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 7.4.2006 the weekly supplement Nyt
*Pissis is a term of uncertain etymology. It is a word of contemporary Finnish youth slang, and refers to certain types of girls in their early teens seen to be extremely fashion-conscious and arrogant to a fault.
RIKU SIIVONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
riku.siivonen@hs.fi
