Things That Annoy Me III

Today's old people.

When I was a kid, and I met an old man, there were some typical attributes of which I could be fairly certain.

He was probably a war vet, either WWII or Korea. His politics were likely conservative, but in those days that didn't automatically mean Republican. He wore his hair a certain way - usually not a crew cut but neither was it very long. It was likely he smoked and said all sorts of unpolitically correct things, either as jokes or because he just didn't give a rat's ass for what anyone thought about what he said. He liked beer, Sinatra and sports on television.

Nowadays, when I meet "an old person" (now someone separated from me by just one generation rather than two), the encounter is altogether different.

Grandma might have a mohawk (I'm not kidding. I once had a parent/teacher conference with mohawk-grandma). Then there is biker-grandpa, who just did a little time for a little weed. My favorites are the AC/DC parents, still wearing their concert T-shirts, sporting their Nazareth tattoos and their "accident" child ("We don't understand why our daughter is so troubled!" Oh boy, if only I could have been honest.)

I wonder what it is like for my kids. For me, old people were always stodgy curmudgeons who wanted me to watch my manners and keep quiet. Now, they are scary, unpredictable creeps who want to have cybersex or sell you dope. Now it's the older generation that seems loose, leaving me to look like an old man before his time, telling the kids to mind their p's and q's.