Old is no excuse for rudeness.

Where's your ideal place to be at 7am on a Wednesday morning? Not many will answer ACME supermarket, but that's where I was, taking advantage of the (normally) perfect time for the lack of queuing and the usual primetime supermarket travails. As usual, it was full of folks who were about 40-50 years older than me, and me. I think hanging with this peer group for a bit a few mornings a week enables me to embrace my curmudgeon by default mantle... or something. However, this fair morning it seemed that ACME was invaded by an entirely new group of my senior friends. The normally nice, pleasant and always ready to chat-to busload from the senior center were not to be seen. Instead, it was the busload of the bitter seniors with chips on shoulders and bow-down-before-me attitudes. Now, I have HUGE respect for the senior population and love to spend time sharing memories and creating fun new ones with my older pals (well, most of them anyway). Typified by my grandmothers having been two of my best friends ever in the world before they passed away at advanced ages, older neighbors who are great friends and Karl, 91 year old grandfather-in-law, is the most amazing man you could spend hours chatting/laughing with). However, most of the seniors in ACME this morning... wow! I would be saying not-so-nice things and have a lot less patience with kids who behaved in similar ways. From the bitching and fighting over the few shopping carts that were available, the shouting at each other because one took the only head of broccoli left, the horrible attitude to the only young guy at the checkout who was being incredibly patient with them (you know it's bad when I'm defending the checkout folk at ACME!). Granted, being older does entitle one to some respect. After all, a lot of these men/women either contributed greatly to or carved paths in their own small way for us to live as we do today but being older doesn't demand respect. To the older lady who in the juice aisle this morning who charged down the aisle toward me (quite sprightly I may add) and some ACME staff who were stacking shelves, I had a few things to say. She crashed into the workers, quite vigorously, then got angry with them for being in the way. They dutifully got out of the way for her, then it was my turn. She couldn't reach something she wanted on the top shelf and simply demanded that I get it for her, not ask. As most would do, I reach up and got it for her. No word of thanks. Then she proceeded to turn back to the workers and start berating them with racial slurs for not doing their jobs and being in the way, no respect for older people, etc. Had to step in here and let her know that the staff are doing their job and are not getting in her way on purpose and in no way warranted any of the other stuff she was hurling at them. So, it became my turn and I got a torrent of "young people nowadays have no respect for their elders" ranting. The loudness of this was causing a bit of a scene. So, I let her finish and then had to say "Look, I have the utmost respect for elders but sorry, old and infirm you might be but this gives you no license to be rude." This launched another torrent of "people like you coming down into our neighborhood..." nonsense. I also informed her that respect is earned, and you get what you give in terms how you treat other people and that she was very lucky she wasn't getting what the people around her at that moment really wanted to give her! She kept going and going as I walked away. Now, those who know me, know that I can often be rather rude. I'll freely admit this, even though I don't like it, I try to curb it when I can but please, please don't let me become one of those horrible, mean, bitter and rude old people that I encountered today. Surely, they weren't like that all their way through life. Were they? If so, how on earth did they get by!? Perhaps she's ill, is having a bad day, recently bereaved or something and I'm being unfair but even then, there's some excuse for rudeness and it shouldn't be something that's accepted because of it. Sometimes, I think I'll be happy to leave our South Philly neighborhood next month, even though I dearly love it. I was fuming and wanted to turn on her even more but that "respect for the elders" thing wouldn't let me and I walked away. It didn't seem to bother her though! At least, as I was leaving the store, my faith was restored as I helped another old pal put her groceries into her push cart. Her smile, brief chat about the cold weather and thanks made me forget (well, not really since I entered this blog) the other old harridan. I wanted to give my nice old lady friend a hug, but thought the better of it as that might have scared her and created a whole other "rudeness" scene...