They say that children learn languages at a remarkably rapid rate. But the nation’s elderly are proving that adage to be a lot of Hungarian hogwash.

It seems that linguists are speechless over the speed at which some seniors are mastering Spanish. Said one tongue-tied expert, “It’s like the opening of some science-fiction movie just before the aliens come.”

In this case, the aliens are us. The seniors aren’t hablando espanol just to communicate with the
housekeeper or the repair man. It’s part of adjusting to their new environment. According to USA Today, America’s aged are checking into Mexican nursing homes where the siestas are plentiful and the price is muy bueno - unlike America’s facilities that cost an arm, a leg, an elbow and a heap of pesos.

Said one expatriate, who used to play Grandpa on The Simpsons until he was replaced by a younger actor, “I can actually afford to eat now. Before I was surviving on fumes from my neighbor’s cooking. They were tasty, but not very filling.”

Though Mexican nursing homes are a new concept in a culture where families actually take care of their aging members, enterprising businessmen are learning the tricks of the trade rather quickly. One popular nursing home plans a jacuzzi and a swimming pool to make older Americans feel like they’re real human beings. It’s a foreign concept to many old folks.

Said the former Grandpa Simpson: “You mean I’m not going to be a burden to my family no more? They’re not gonna resent me ‘til I die then fight over what I leave behind? That’s downright un-American.”

Many would agree. One anonymous woman on the street said that dumping the old in expensive nursing homes where they’re kept under heavy sedation is a fine American tradition that shouldn’t be discarded. “No one ever mentions the sacrifices that we make to send our parents to these homes. Old people are a bunch of cry babies. They don’t appreciate nothing!”

BeyondChron has learned that surprisingly a mere 50 years ago, American families, especially ethnic ones with names that no one can spell, used to keep their elderly at home until they died. Downtown executive Anna Maria Malafiglia recalls her mother telling tales of Grandma Malafiglia’s long illness and eventual death in her bedroom surrounded by her loved ones.

“It just seems so primitive,” Malafiglia said, “like witch doctors or Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. People should die in a nice clean nursing home surrounded by a caring staff that gets paid well to take care of them.”

Reached for comment by telephone, Homer Simpson, who keeps his father in a nursing home in Springfield, demonstrated the wisdom that has kept him a star for all these years: “Old people should know better than to get old in a country that hates old age.”

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical, southern Italian, working-class, atheist queer performer and writer with a webpage: www.avicollimecca.com