I had to interact with the public
yesterday in several venues: the drug store, the supermarket, the library, the
pet food store. In each place I was confounded by the aged. From what
demographers are telling us, it's just going to get worse. Now that I've tipped
past the half-century mark, I'm beginning to wonder just when I'll start
exhibiting the signs of Old Fogeyism. I saw enough symptoms yesterday to start
tallying them.
The Stunned Sheep
These meat-on-feet walk around a
public place, usually in a store of some sort, looking as if they'd been taken
to a foreign country, dumped from a car in an unfamiliar neighborhood, and then
hit in the head with a clown hammer. These blue-hairs walk around with the same
stupefied look most of the rest of us would have if we were instantaneously
transported to the Emerald City. They never seem to be in the process of buying
anything, instead their job is to get in the way. They push empty carts around
and gaze myopically at foods they would never buy.
The Friendly Old Coot
These gummers can't resist trying to
engage you in conversation, but they socially inept since they spend most of
the day in conversation with their parakeet.
"Say, that's a lot of soda pop you're buying.
What are you going to do with all of that?"
How do you respond to that with something other than
"frell you." What business is it of theirs what I buy and how I
intend to use it?
Mr. Been There, Done That
Usually an old-timer who has a face
that looks like fine-tooled saddle leather and smells like he's smoked a carton
of Chesterfields in a phone booth. He can't resist telling you what a fool you
are for selecting the items you're about to purchase.
"You shouldn't be buying those folding plastic
sawhorses."
"¿Que?"
"They ain't strong enough!"
Imprinted in the plastic is a warning from the
manufacturer that they should not be used to support more than 400 pounds. To
me, if it weighs more than that, I'm not liable to be hiking up onto a
sawhorse. The "frell you" response is most appropriate here.
The Examiners
These are the old folks who have to
read the fine print on the Campbell's soup can. The same soup they've been
buying for 75 years. Their proper stance is to put their grocery cart sideways
in the aisle, hold onto the handle and reach across to the other side of the
aisle to read the contents of the Distillata bottle: "Water." Their
peripheral vision has so deteriorated that if you stand next to them, awaiting
them to move so you can navigate the aisle, they can't see you. A "Pardon
me" will stir them from their concentration with the same vigor as firing
a gunshot next to Delayed Stress Syndromed Vietnam vet.
The Tourist
This is a driver who's had their
license for 71 years. They can be found navigating a 20-year-old land-yacht
down the street, at least 10 miles below the speed limit. If it's a man, he's
wearing a hat while he drives. If it's a woman, she's wearing a plastic rain
scarf on her head. You know you've encountered one of these by the twisting and
turning of their heads: Everything on either side of the roads so fascinates
them that they can't pay attention to the traffic ahead of them. "Look at
that! That man's mowing his lawn!"
Mom's Day Out
Usually a woman who is being taken
to the store by their middle-aged offspring. They navigate through the store
with the same speed as a snail on stilts for the first time. What's nice about
the duo is that they travel down the middle
of the aisle.
"Momma, do you want some bananas?"
"I only want one and a half. They're binding, you
know. I need to get a laxative. The last time I was to the doctor he said my
legs wouldn't hurt so much if I'd keep off of ladders. When are we going to get
prune juice?"
The Weary
This isn't exactly restricted to the
aged. These are the people that are so tired that they have to lean on the
grocery carts to keep from falling over. If they're that tired, what are they
doing out of bed? I've known people with mononucleosis who have had more pep.
The Advice Seeker
These are sometimes combined with
The Examiners. They will stand in front of the item you wish to purchase and
compare two boxes of pizza rolls to see if the store brand has different
"All natural spices" listed in its ingredients than those offered by
Totino's. When you finally reach around them to grab a box of egg rolls, they
look at your purchase as if it were a box of fresh-frozen Manna straight from
the Sinai Dessert.
"Are those good?"
"No madam, they are horrid. I am an automasochist
and force myself to eat disgusting food in order to achieve sexual
release."
The Pack Mule
These are the remaining old-timers
who haven't yet had their driver's license taken away because they can't see
over the dashboard anymore. The come to stores to buy not only their own
groceries, but victuals for their housebound friends. They insist on having six
piles of items that each must be rung up separately since electronic
calculators are still awaiting invention in the XXIII½ Century and it's too
hard to round off change to the nearest dollar. A typical order sitting on the
conveyor belt is one banana, four slices of dutch loaf, a can of Cream of
Celery soup [store-brand], two kaiser rolls, and a bottle of glycerin
suppositories. This is enough for a week for most people over 80. The Mule
usually pays cash for each transaction until they get to their own. They will
watch the cashier tote up their items and wait until they are presented with a
total before they start rummaging around in their purse for their checkbook.
The check cannot be handed to the cashier until it is painstakingly entered in
the check register. Then
they start looking for their check-cashing card.
The Get-Away Driver
This is usually a man –
wearing a hat, of course – that must park in the fire lane in front of
the store, as close to the entrance as physically possible while his wife goes
in to wander the aisles like a stunned sheep, since it's too far to walk from
the Crip parking space. Why doesn't he do the shopping? It's not manly, of
course. At least, not as manly as sitting in an idling car, listening to Rush
Limbaugh, and smoking Pall Malls.
The Prime Timer
Since these people aren't working,
you'd think they'd have all of the time in the world to do their errands
outside of the few meager minutes that working stiffs have to do their errands
before the sidewalks are rolled up. Go into the supermarket at 10:30 a.m. and
old farts are nowhere to be found. Check back at 5:30 p.m., and they're
clogging the aisles. Go to the barbershop on a Saturday afternoon and six of
them are waiting for a trim. Where were they on Wednesday at 2:30?
The Complainer
Usually found in restaurants.
Nothing on the menu is any good and the service is lousy as well. At least they
insist on making their food order arcane: "I want the cream of wheat
boiled for only ten minutes instead of 15, and make sure they don't use any
salt or cook it in an aluminum pan." They vocalizations in close
conversations sound like they learned to whisper in the boiler factory. If they
tip more than a penny, it's usually 50¢. Wait staff are encouraged to spit in
their food.
The Anatomist
A close relative of The Complainer
and may accompany them. These are the people who insist on waiting until you're
eating your spaghetti to tell their dining partner how they had the varicose
veins stripped from their legs, or other anatomical details that would send a
thoracic surgeon puking from the room.
Lem and Abner
A grizzled duo who between them have
lost 160 percent of their hearing. They flock to places like theaters and
libraries to hold conversations as if they were in their own living rooms. They
are immune to glares and always have a cutting word for those who ask them to
keep it under 80 dB.
"Cute" Granny
This is usually some old nanny goat
who expostulates at everything she sees. She's usually sitting behind you in
the theater. She makes sure she punctuates the film or play with plenty of
"Ohs," "Ahs," and "Isn't that darling" to make
sure everyone around her knows how cunning the display is and what a sensitive,
appreciative soul she is. Sometimes accompanied by Bratty Granddaughter.
Stinky Nana
Where does that smell come from!? These are little,
frail white-hairs wearing chiffon scarves who have that distinct Oldster Spice
smell. It smells like a combination of unguents and sprays that only sell to
those over 75, Jean Natte and Granny Funk. Whatever it is, it forms a miasma
that can contaminate an entire grocery-store aisle and sticks in the back of
your sinuses for 45 minutes.
Surly Unkempt Chauffeur
He looks like he's 19, hasn't shaved
in the past month, but the facial hair has only appeared in mangy spots. He's
driving a beater that he's parked in front of the entry to the store so that
it's nearly impassable. He's got his ball-cap on backwards, his car radio
blasting out rap, and a Marlboro stuck in his puss. But, don't be too hard on
him, he's there because he drove Mam-maw to the store to do her grocery
shopping. He'll also get a 40-ouncer of PBR and a carton of smokes from her by
way of gratitude. It'll also prevent him from stealing money from her purse
later. He'll grow up to be The Getaway Driver.
The Man Whom Time Forgot
He's the old sourpuss for whom the
world started going to Hell the day after he turned 21. He complains loudly
– to himself, but in hopes that everyone around him will hear and agree
– how everything was better back in his day. "These bananas don't
taste as good as the ones we used to pick fresh outside the barracks on
Guadalcanal." Nothing is as good as it was back when he could see, taste,
feel, walk, and have sex.
The Disaffected Bagger
He makes the Lost Generation seem
like hard-charging up-and-comers. He's working at the grocery store only
because his parents won't support his ganja habit anymore. His head's shaved to
a five-o'clock-shadow and he's attempting to grow a goatee but Nature's against
him. Bagging groceries is his Purgatory. He'll put fifteen #10 cans of tomatoes
on top of the bread and then use separate bags for a magazine, for a box of
tissues, and a pound of bolognie. He's more interested in making time with the
pimply-girl cashier than making sure that everything you bought gets in your
cart. Ugly tribal tats are mandatory.
The Border Guard
This Nazi is most common at
wholesale clubs and computer stores. Their goal is to be sure you're not
sneaking a spinet piano out of the building by hiding it under your shirt. In
the computer store, they stand next to the Scream Gates of Theft [which are
always ignored] and demand to see your receipt. They've watched you pile you
stuff up at the register, watched the clerk bag it in a translucent bag, and
watched them hand you a receipt. But, they still have to check to make sure you
aren't in cahoots with the cashier and are walking out with an Apple G4 for
which you've paid 12¢. Their counterpart at the wholesale club checks your
receipt and compares it to the overflowing shopping cart of junk and suckerbait
you've just bought. It's not an item-by-item comparison, just a looksee to make
you feel guilty. Why do they do it? "Vee vere chust followink
orders."
The Foodphobic
They're women you'd think never saw
food before. They're usually an old lady, but the Foodphobic can also be
younger. At one end of the youth spectrum she makes Callista Fockart look a
linebacker and at the other end she's as massive as a DeSoto. When the food
arrives at the table she's the one who complains about the servings being so
large that she doesn't know what to do. The olderster will have 90 percent of
it boxed up and live on it for the next week and a half. The youngsters will
also take home the same amount and gorge on the remains at home. The difference
is that the one with the pipe-cleaner figure will immediately purge while the
porker will finish it up with two malts and a dozen donuts, then call for a
pizza, extra grease please.
So,
I can't wait until more and more of these people start populating my life. Feel
free to contact me to add to the list.