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At the risk of sounding insensitive, I will preface this article by telling you how much I love and respect my parents, who, unfortunately are getting old but have forgiven me and given their permission for my submission of the following tirade:
(To be read tongue in cheek)
Why do old people do everything so slow? Don't get me wrong, I understand that physically, old folks can no longer do the things they once did as efficiently, but it's not the physically demanding sort of things I'm talking about.
Example: I'm in the check out line at the grocery store and there is this ancient couple in front of me and I'm saying to my self, "Great, just great. Now I'm going to miss the start of the Westminster Dog Show on television and there's tell of this amazing dachshund that's attempting to make history…and I'm going to miss it, I just know I am!"
Or something along those lines. It certainly wasn't nice but I knew exactly what was about to happen.
First, they take forever getting everything out of their cart. I can deal with this because they are old and over time things break down and you just can't unload a shopping cart as quickly as you once did. I factor in these things when I get in line…if they are old, add fifteen minutes.
What bothers me though, is that they always seem to have a question about what it is they are buying or how much it costs. Maybe it's just me but I tend to remember what I've placed in my basket and have a pretty good idea how much it's going for. "Price check on register seven please!"
Once the sixteen year old zit faced assistant manager makes his way back from the produce isle by way of China and verifies that the spinach was indeed 89 cents a pound and not 88 cents, the cashier finally totals up their purchase and holds out her hand for the money.
Which of course is still tucked safely away in the woman's purse. It seems they are unaware that they have to pay for all this stuff. This, of course, made me curious as to why they were so worried about the price of the spinach.
It wouldn't be a bad idea I suppose if you got to stop paying for things at a certain age, but it's never going to happen.
These folks have been paying for things all their lives…you'd think they had it down by now but it never fails, they just stare blankly at the cashier, who to her credit, repeats the total and sticks her had out further.
My eyes roll back in my head when the lady pulls a coupon out of her purse for the light bulb they bought and the cashier had to call the manager over to adjust the price. Now, you would think that as she was doing this, the geriatric genius would go ahead and get her money ready.
Nope, same blank expression like that three cent coupon is gonna go ahead and bring their balance on down to zero.
I'm rather frustrated at this point and quietly cursing to myself. I never should have put myself in this position but all the other lines were so backed up with carts filled to the brim that I had no choice really.
I thought that perhaps I just might get lucky and I was in the express lane for Heaven's sake. Of course when you get old it is also apparent that you lose your ability or inclination to count because the couple in front of me certainly had more than the ten items this line was designed to handle.
Anyway, the lady finally gets her money out and instead of giving the cashier sixty dollars to cover a $58.30 purchase; she has to give her the exact amount. So in she went, searching for that little purse inside a purse old folks are so fond of that held the magical coins to mercifully finalize this transaction.
This took a while as theses tiny purses are difficult enough for an agile, arthritis free young lady such as myself to navigate much less a withered, eighty two year old women. And where the heck did the change come from in the first place? I mean if you are always paying with exact change, wouldn't you eventually run out of the stuff?
At this point I'm practically in tears. I'm missing the dog show, my ice cream is melting and I'm twenty minutes older…and so are they. Which confuses me to know end. They haven't much time left so why wouldn't they want to breeze through this most mundane of chores as quickly as possible?
Perhaps they know the end is near and they are at peace with that. Why rush, they've been rushing all their lives and probably regret not slowing down once in a while to smell the roses as they say.
Thank goodness for TiVo. I was able to record and watch my show despite the couple's nostalgic walk down memory lane right there in the checkout line. Funny how I spent the entire time getting frustrated and angry instead of slowing down and joining them.
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