Growing Older

If you think that this is going to be a post filled with some great advice for growing older or me complaining that my back hurts - you will be sorely disappointed. This post is about how old people baffle me on a regular basis.

So this whole week at the shore, I've been asked at least twice a day when the family members over the age of 40 pass by and I'm on the computer, "You workin'?" Let me tell you that it gets really annoying to have to keep telling them that I'm not. Today was the last time for that question hopefully, as my response was "Do you have to ask me that every day? No, I'm not. Is there something wrong with wanting to play on Facebook and blog? You're reading - are you working?" I think that should be the end of that question. I wouldn't mind if 4 different people kept walking up to ask me the same question every single day. There is a reason that I like working - the questions are less aggravating.

There are some other things that they do which really confuse me as well. One of the things that I will never understand is how watching QVC (the home shopping channel) as a television program is considered acceptable. I don’t think it is. It leads me to believe that there is something seriously wrong and a trip to the doctor for a brain scan is in order.

Lastly, they don’t ask for things. Old people start asking questions instead as a roundabout way of finding out the answer. For instance, my uncle doesn’t like to go to the beach. But he loves going on day trips to see the sights (we are surrounded by ocean – that’s the only sight I need) or going shopping at one of the towns. So my cousin and his girlfriend were walking downstairs earlier today. My uncle was checking his email on his computer on the other side of the room yells out, “Hey Matt, where are you going?” Matt replies that he and Mary are heading to the beach and my uncle just grunts and goes back to his email. Not long after, Uncle Bruce was heading over to Stone Harbor to do some shopping. Uncle Dan asks the same question. When he discovers that Bruce is going shopping it’s all of a sudden, “Wait – I’ll go with you!” He jumps up from the computer, runs upstairs to get his wallet, and out the door they go. If he just would have asked if anyone was planning on heading somewhere other than the beach today, he would have saved himself quite a bit of frustration. I guess retired people just need stuff to do to kill some time and frustrating themselves and others around them is considered to be one of those activities.

(By the way, his computer just said that he had new email. He didn’t even bother to log out before running out the door to go to Stone Harbor).