Old and cantankerous

Last night I started to realize one of the benefits to getting older, and damn it I'm jealous. See what I noticed was that as long as you were old enough, you could be as rude as you liked and nobody would say anything, well at least not to your face. I saw some behaviour last night that I would normally anticipate of redneck teenagers with attitude problems, not senior citizens seeing Hamlet. Oh well, maybe there is less of a culture gap in society than I first suspected.

There were a couple of stellar examples of behaviour that I'm certain would have earned these seniors a lashing when they were children that they felt perfectly entitled to commit. One of my favorites was the old woman who just started going backwards down the line of deserts offered at intermission. Without saying anything she just shouldered her way in front of me, confusing the hell out of me, because I was sure she had just paid for the cookie she had in hand. But apparently she wanted to exchange it for a cake and to hell with anyone who stood in her way. I actually do think she shouldered-checked the woman in line in front of me in order to get some more space. I backed away quickly at that point, she might be old but I've heard of what can be done with a hat-pin or a crochet needle.

Another example of elderly rude behaviour were the people coming in well after the play started, or leaving before or immediately before the curtain call. You would think that these seniors would have realized by now that they don't drive nearly as fast as everyone else (can we keep them off the road during rush hour?). Add to that their haphazard choice of lanes, or lack of choice (sure, your Crown Vic is big, but you don't need two lanes grandpa). You do have to wonder how they end up being late for shows anyway, I mean I've seen some old-folks just ignore stop signs and no turn on red signs. I guess when you get that old death is already in the passenger seat so what does it matter if you roll through a stop sign or two...even if it's only done at 10 mph (damn...the Americans are taking hold, I meant 16 km/h, honestly I did).

At the end of the show of course we weren't finished with the "I'm old so I own this place" attitude. As anyone who has ever been to a theater for a movie, play, musical, concert or lingerie show knows, people have a tendency to want to leave rapidly (particularly after the last one in the list). So what did the old man who is gradually shrinking to the height of a hobbit do a foot out the theater door? He stopped to delicately put on his coat or whatever the hell he decided to do right then, either way he was taking his sweet time (which as far as I could tell, he doesn't have much left).

What struck me about all these incidents is that nobody says a damn thing. So I can't wait to be that old. I mean I'm a nice guy in person and I don't do things that will piss people off, after all I am Canadian. So I can't wait until I'm old and able to finally feel free to flip the bird as needed, take up all the lanes in the road and drive whatever damn speed I like...it's going to be sweet!