One of my mom's in-home health aides referred to her clients as "my elderlies". My mom thought it was amusing. Most folks probably didn't.

Recently I applied for the affordable health care system at our local public hospital network, a teaching hospital that does pretty good work considering the low cost. After being hit by a car and out of work indefinitely it's all I could afford. I'm grateful to have access to affordable health care at all.

Immediately after being approved on the spot they even squeezed me into the clinic for my first checkup, which was great. The intern and LPN were terrific. After the initial checkup they told me my next visits would be at the clinic down the hall.

I looked at the referral paper. It read "Geriatric clinic."

I'm 60.

Geriatric.