Alright...I work at T.G.I. Friday's. I am not happy about that, but it has afforded me certain opportunities to view the world through the eyes of that lowly person who is made to work for you. I think that there are a few places where you can observe people for what they are...one of them: Restaurants.

So why do I bring this up? Well, today is the day that I quell all questions about what the rudest demographic in the nation is. After having driven behind their inconsiderate tendencies, and served/waited on them in restaurants I have decided that "old people" are the rudest demographic. Evidently, there comes an age when rational thought leaves a person and "me, me, me" takes over. This age...varies from person to person, but it is roughly about when your skin wrinkles over your eyes and everything annoys you. Now, most everything annoys me, but my skin has not yet began to wrinkle...so I am good for at least another 30 years.

I am not naive enough to think that I could make a claim like this and have nothing to back it up, so here is my evidence:

Well, we'll start with the obvious: They always have a scowl on their face. No seriously, watch the next time your Grandma gives you something...she is probably wincing. And do you know why? Because it pains her to have to give. Now...I know, after having served in a restaurant setting that many "old people" think that it is acceptable to tip $1.00 on a $1,000 check. Strange how that works...industry standard is 15-18%, while they are willing to tip .1%...I may be stupid, but I definitely notice a difference there. Well, another reason she is probably scowling is because all those years of walking to school in sub-zero temperature on broken glass with rapists throwing snowballs at her and school bullies gutting her with a baseball bat, etc. has taken its toll on her face and her power of control over it.

Next, I would like to move on to their driving capabilities...or, I guess, their driving uncapabilities...I don't even know if that is a word, but I am going to use it. Anyway, Let me relay an example:

I am driving down the street, and I see this car coming at me (at this point in the other lane), when suddenly, as I am about to pass the car, the car swerves into my lane and cuts me off to turn into a driveway. I look...and the car is driving itself. I am astounded...but as the car passes, I see the slight outline of an old woman who is hunched up behind the steering wheel.

Hmmmmm...I don't know even where to begin with the problems that have surfaced with this story...so as usual, a list is in order.

1. She can't even see over the steering wheel...she shouldn't be driving
2. Her rediculously huge dark sunglasses were probably affecting her vision
3. She cut me off
4. She, chances are, didn't even realize that I was on the road...before or after the incident.

This just moves me right along to my next point: "Old People" aren't coherent. Being coherent is a fairly big thing in most people's book because it divides you from the dead. Well, that just brings me to my next point:

The Inuit people(eskimoes) had this practice at one time...maybe not anymore...but they did have it and that is all that is important. So, the practice was that once a person got to a certain age...they were sent off from society on an iceberg...whereupon they died. But, what we need to grasp from this scenario, is that these people left society before they had to endure the embarassment of alzheimer's disease or the tragedy of killing a family because they cut them off in traffic causing them to careen off a cliff.

This may sound extreme, but I assure you...the issue is very real. Not only are old people rude and beligerent because "they've earned the right" to talk my ear off, but they are incoherent and often rediculously irrational. Now granted, there are always exceptions to the rule (← that junk is, of course, for those of you out there who swear that your grandma gives out of the kindness of her heart), but we must understand that on the whole...something needs to be done.

I propose, when we hit 65...yeah, that is a good age...we should just be shot. The iceburg thing would be a terrible way to go...or how about this? We have this cave...with a really, really, really, really deep pit...then we let them loose in the cave and tell them that at the other end is a neat shiny quarter, and in their quest for a stinkin' quarter (and they will "quest" for it) they would walk off into this pit. Then we wouldn't have to hear their screams, and they would die in their prime...sort of. Well, whatever, you can think of your own solution to the problem.

I also understand that old people are "wise"...so let's have them all start working on a book of "wiseness" when they are 60, and they can spend the last five years of their life reflecting. We'll take this book and compile it with other books, tossing out the rif-raff and repitition, and then have the book for all to view....There would probably be yearly editions because old people would be taken to the cave daily. Then at 65...the book had better be done...we say, "Good bye...have a nice a fall."

Thanks for stopping by..I know I sure enjoyed.

-Luke Snyder