Old people.
Alright, so I touched on this in my last post, but I figured that I should do some clarifying. It’s not that I *hate* old people per se, but I have a problem with the way that the majority of them act towards the young.
Working in retail, you come across this quite frequently. Even more so, however, when you work at a Commissary. For those of you unfamiliar, a Commissary is the military’s equivalent to a grocery store, with hugely reduced prices (for the most part.) and when they hire students, you only get to work weekends, when all the veterans and other various old people decide they need to shop for $900 worth of cat food and adult diapers.
Anyways, for some reason, this group of citizens seems to think that they are entitled to cutting in line, using expired coupons, and deserve special treatment, because they have LIVED. Half of them don’t even deserve a DRIVER’S license, let alone special treatment. Now, I’m sorry, but living these days is not such a feat. If you were in the Middle Ages and survived to be 80, sure, that’s something to be proud of. They didn’t have advanced medical care, they didn’t have BATHS every day, they had the plague…it was hard stuff. But these days, with modern medicine, it is not such a big deal that you made it to be old and decrepit.
On to the driving thing. I know, it’s a cliche, like the one about black guys having better endowments, white girls not knowing how to dance, or Jewish people being good with money. But old people simply should NOT be able to drive. For instance, when I still lived in Washington state, I had a 30 minute commute into Olympia every day for work and school. One day, I was cutoff by a car that slowed down to 35 mph on a highway where the speed limit is 65. I passed, infuriated that I’d almost DIED, and looked at the driver to give them a patented death glare that I’ve perfected over my years of interacting with my Sicilian relatives. Much to my horror and surprise, it was a woman who was probably ten times my age, and six inches shorter, whose nose barely came over her steering wheel, and she was BREATHING THROUGH AN OXYGEN TANK. I’m sorry, but if you need oxygen tanks to survive, you really shouldn’t be driving, especially when you drive so poorly. You crash, and BOOM. Everybody in close radius is dead because your LIFE SUPPORT blew UP on them.
All in all, I am not anti-old people. I’m really not. Granted, I get a bit uncomfortable around them, but that’s for person reasons which I won’t disclose. I just think that if they have indeed lived so long, and they’re “wiser” then they should be able to decide when they can’t drive anymore…or decide that they should treat the younger generation with respect, because they were once young as well. I think we should give them as much respect as they give to us.
<3
FallingStar said,
January 6, 2008 at 3:46 pm
OMG! you’re so right. After reading your blog,I must say i couldn’t be more agree with you. I work in a supermarket and I’ve to deal with old ppl EVERY SINGLE DAY! I don’t hate them, but I think, as you wrote, that they should treat younger generations with a lil more respect, I mean, if you yell at an old person you’re a bad-mannered rat, but if they insult you and disrespect you it’s ok?.That’s not fair. We are as human as they are, and they can’t walk over the rest of the ppl only bc they have lived.
Ok, this comment is getting too long, it’s just I have to face old ppl’s complaints every day in my job, and felt the need to comment.
good luck, and your entries are very interesting, btw.