Alan took a deep breath before he went into Mr. Lowe's room. Once a week, the retiree volunteered at a nursing home and visited the residents who didn't have people coming to see them. .He loved to give back, but Mr. Lowe wasn't the easiest person to get along with.
"Good morning Mr. Lowe!" he said cheerfully to the old man, At ninety two, he was wheelchair bound, had long grey hair, very pale face, bags under his eyes, and a frail, tiny body.. "How are ya?"
"I want my coco" Lowe whined. He called hot chocolate that, as his mother had been English.
"It'll be coming very soon." Alan said, and noticed some magazines on the floor next to his host. "Let me pick up these for you" Alan bent down and picked them up.
"They're full of crap!" he complained.
"Let's see what they've got" Alan began to look, but was hit on the head by a magazine the older man had on his lap.
"What the hell?" Alan flinched and rubbed his head. Mr. Lowe was a very impatient man.
"Where' s my coco???"
"It'll be here in a minute!" Alan tried to be patient.
"Ninety two years old" Mr. Lowe began.
"Ninety three in November, right?" Alan remembered one of the nurses mentioning that.
"Ninety two years old and I've never had oral sex"
"Oh..?" Alan didn't know what else to say. At the orientation, the person in charge of the volunteers had stressed the need to be willing to listen.
"I've never ridden a camel" Mr. Lowe continued.
"That's a uh...real shame" Alan kindly opened the curtains to let in sunlight.
"I've never seen a woman urinate, never killed a man, never been inside an opera house, never eaten a hamburger..." he went on
"Maybe uh...the hot chocolate will make you feel better"
"I don't want any freaking coco"
"Aren't you the contrarian"? Alan rolled his eyes and thought.
"I want to drink the milk from a Burmese maiden!!" the old man demanded.
"Well uh...that might be a little difficult to arrange" Alan said lamely and sat in a chair near the man.
"You shouldn't be in a place like this at your time of life" Mr. Lowe began to scold Alan. "You should be out there, having oral sex, killing people and watching women urinate in opera houses eating hamburgers in Opera houses, and drinking milk from the breast of Nepalese maidens "
"That is just the worst advise I've ever gotten in my life" Alan thought, but said "It was Burmese last time."
"Nepalese. I changed my mind"
At that moment, an orderly came in with the hot chocolate.
As the older man happily drank it, Alan fervently hoped that the drink would improve the old man's mood. Somehow he doubted it.
The End.
a/n: This oneshot was a take off of the Mr. Simnock sketch from A bit of Fry and Laurie. Thanks to youtube, I've gotten to see bits of that fine show and wish that BBC America or a public station would broadcast it.