For those of you who keep track of moon phases, which may or may not be many people, there was a full moon on Wednesday. For me, a full moon means no yoga – it’s tradition to not practice on full or new moon days – which translates to extra sleep. For some, however, it means that the Wolfman is transforming and we’re all going to die. This is the only possible explanation for the craziness in my neighbourhood of late. First – and this is very disturbing – my neighbour informed me, and then I later saw on the news, there has been a serial arsonist in my neighbourhood, conjectured to be a resident who has, apparently, been on a rampage, setting cars and garages on fire. WELL THEN. Where am I living? This isn’t East LA. Given my lifelong fear of fire, this is not sitting well with me. Soon I’m going to be sitting up late at night, at the window, with one eye peeking out behind the drapes and one hand on my (theoretical) shotgun. Get off my lawn, motherfuckers.
Tuesday afternoon I went to my once-a-week restorative yoga class. This is, for those of you who aren’t familiar, a gentle-stretch-and-relaxation class that I find helps with my regular, somewhat rigorous, six-day-a-week yoga practice. This class generally consists of me and a whole lot of much older women, and I almost always relax to the point that I fall asleep, only to jerk awake with my feet up the wall, hoping I wasn’t snoring or drooling. Anyway, I finished my class and in my blissful, zen-like state, decided to just “pop in” to the post office to “quickly pick up” some stamps. BIG MISTAKE. It was madness in the post office, madness. There were people sending off packages everywhere, who needed many different shipping methods and insurance and whatnot, and I certainly do not begrudge anyone that. It is the season for sending packages, and it is only the end of November. But. I would have been fine to wait ten minutes in line while the only two employees in the store figured things out. I am a stay at home mom and I still had forty minutes until I had to pick up the kids; it’s not like my schedule is packed here, people. I just spent 75 minutes in a semi-nap state. I have time on my hands and I assume that senior citizens do too, which is why I was a little disturbed when an old lady physically pushed me aside, budged in front of me when the man at the counter called for the next customer, saying that she only needed to buy stamps. Hi. Me too? I was a little startled, and then I started laughing with the sixty-ish man behind me, who was my witness in this ridiculous little power play. I mean, what am I going to do, shove the old lady out of the way, saying that NO FUCK YOU OLD LADY I NEED SOME STAMPS. STAND DOWN. Of course not! I turned to the man and told him to please not push me aside, I would be super fast with my stamps. He tipped his old man hat to me, and we shared a laugh. Good times and new friends in the post office.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and go against the common classification of the elderly: in my experience – which is vast, since I live in a neighbourhood made up with a significant majority of seniors – the characterization of elderly men as being “grumpy old men” and elderly women as being “sweet old ladies” is incorrect. I have never been hit in the backs of my legs by a grocery cart pushed by an old man while standing in line for groceries. On the other hand, I have had impromptu duets with old men in the liquor store. Old men hold the door open for me, say nice things about my boys, and are generally easy-going and friendly. Old women are very frequently pushy, crabby, and mean. The post office incident is just one more nail in the coffin of the “sweet old lady” stereotype in my mind. I don’t even want to talk about the old lady who was ringing the “ring for service” bell like she was a toddler who just realized that pressing the little button on the pretty silver bell makes a jingly noise, but angry.
Yesterday I went to the liquor store, having discovered that I am down to my last bottle of wine. We can’t have that. I like to buy my wine at the Superstore liquor store because they always have deals if you buy in large quantities, as I am wont to do. I was carrying my case of Shiraz to the cash register when I noticed a whole rack devoted to no-name wine. And by no-name, I mean those yellow labels that Superstore is famous for. The labels read “red wine” and “white wine” with nothing else. I was actually a bit taken aback by this, and asked the cashier if anyone actually purchased no-name Superstore brand wine. He answered yes, and that the wine was “actually really good”. I looked at this young man, with his giant stretched earlobes that contained cork-looking circles in the manner of a Masai warrior, and was silenced. I could no more imagine Superstore brand wine as being “really good” as I could imagine those giant stretched earlobes to be an attractive and fun idea. I could imagine hobos enjoying that wine, perhaps, or maybe the spoiled bastard who has been setting people’s cars on fire for fun. I can totally understand how Sipowitz and Kelly and Martinez go batshit on their perps, because – om shanti and zen-states notwithstanding – I would too. “You’re going to Riker’s, you little bastard. You’re going to be in with all the whores and the junkies.”
After my wine purchases, I was meeting a woman at Starbucks to talk about our school council and fundraising ideas. I was paying for my seriously overpriced peppermint tea when a man came up to me and asked if I was Jennifer. No, I’m Nicole. He told me he is on a blind date and was looking for Jennifer. OH BUT IF I HAD SAID YES. There are a lot of Jennifers out there, sir. What if my name was Jennifer? The hilarity that would have ensued would have been comparable to a Three’s Company episode. In any event, Jennifer did show up and it was very clear that she was not into him at all. Part of this could have been the fact that he was very eager and enthusiastic, to the point of making everyone uncomfortable. I tried to eavesdrop as best I could but I was discussing fundraising ideas and trying my best not to seem like a full-moon lunatic.
Full Moon, and the Werewolves (of London) are coming
November 29, 2012 by 18 Comments
This post made me snort-laugh over and over again.
You know why little old ladies are mean? It’s because they’ve been swallowing their opinions of yellow-label “red” and “white” wine, earlobe stretchers, and sad morons on blind dates for too long. Then, when they get old, they stop giving a fuck. At all. And begin saying whatever damn fool thing pops into their head.
My mom is only 54 and she’s doing it ALREADY. She calls it “being honest” but it is really “having no brakes between your brain & your mouth”.
Meanwhile, men have always been free to speak their minds, so they don’t feel the need to make up for it when they are old. They are instead completely able to be courtly fellows in nice hats because they have nothing left to prove.
I’m so stealing that “having no brakes between your brain and your mouth” lol !
My mom has never had much of a brake between the brain and mouth (growing up we called it not having any filter). Now that’s she’s in her mid 60s, the brakes are totally shot. It’s a good thing that she broke me of the luxury of embarrassment years ago or going out in public with her would be impossible. My dad seldom says anything…
I *heart* Hannah’s comment. I can’t wait till I’m a little old lady. I’m going to be cutting off people in line and slamming back tetra paks of wine and using my shopping cart as a battery ram. LOOK OUT WORLD, I’M COMING FOR YOU IN THIRTY YEARS.
No, but we have blogs! So we’re getting out the thoughts now, so we will be more like the courtly old men with nice hats.
Although, maybe we should be roomies in the old folks home, you can be my muscle and throw down (via shopping cart) anyone that pisses us off.
I wonder if men have the opposite experience? That is, I wonder if the old ladies coo over them and are sweet to them, and the old men are gruff and aggressive with them?
I just placed an order for stamps online. No aggressive old ladies for ME!! Then I realized I had to go to the post office ANYWAY to mail something else. SIGH, FINE, aggressive old ladies for me.
Oh, maybe! I should ask my husband if he ever gets any sweet old lady action.
Ha about the blind date guy.
I liked how that other guy “tipped his old man hat” at you.
Those stretched earlobes make me want to hurl.
My friend Donna from book club was waiting for a blind date once. She saw the guy walk in and go up to a woman much younger than her and say ‘Donna’? And the woman’s name WAS DONNA! And then he was all disappointed when my friend said she was the real date. I was REALLY NICE to my husband the night I heard that story.
What a terrible story! Poor Donna! That guy wasn’t worth it anyway, Donna! *sobs for humanity*
Hannah’s comment is freaking me out. I actually came here to ask if you thought that we were all doomed to become cranky old ladies who are over-entitled at the post office, or if we could recognize the problem and use our witty blogs to avoid that fate. But now Hannah has me thinking we are all DOOMED.
I must go right now and make a wide-open blog post in which I rant about everything that has ever bothered me ever. Then I’m going over the post office where I will be super sweet to EVERYONE, I swear.
We’re not doomed, so long as we have blogs to rant on! So rant away, my friend!
There is a cute little white haired old lady in my neighbourhood who leaves her little old house and walks RIGHT OUT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD and waves her arms and her cane like a MANIAC so that you think she is having some sort of little old lady EMERGENCY… and when you pull up to her and stop (because this is one game of chicken that she wins every time) she hobbles over to the passenger door – which of course you unlock – and she climbs into the car and tells you she needs to be taken to Walmart.
I’m not even kidding this has happened to me TWICE. The first time I thought it was cute and I was very sympathetic and obliging as I figured it was a special circumstance Walmart type emergency. The second time I was in my own panic (of the late again variety) and it was not cute. I could NOT stop this lady from climbing in to my car. And when I shooed her out at the pedestrian light across from the mall so I could turn and go in the opposite direction, I endured embarrassing evil glares of shock and indignation from every car that passed by “How could you drop that cute little old lady on the side of the road?” I’m sure they were saying….”What kind of an evil bitch ARE you?”Are you fucking kidding me? I’M the VICTIM here….
My husband Tom says he has watched this happen to the guy in the car in front of him. We are now on little old lady ALERT every time we leave the neighbourhood. This brash little old lady has decided it is her prerogative to make her neighbours HER OWN PERSONAL CAB SERVICE.
Little old ladies are ruthless.
OMG! This is the best story I have ever heard! I AM DYING LAUGHING OVER HERE. Laughing at your pain – sorry about that. Now that sweet old lady sure has things figured out. What kind of sick bastard would throw an old lady out of their car? Oh, she is SLY LIKE A FOX!
I know, right? I am STILL ‘WTF?’ indignant every time I think about it.
That is one crazy little old lady.
I read this first thing this morning (my phone doesn’t let me comment on Blogger sadly) but it was exactly the kind of laugh that I needed to get me going. Danke!
So in my city an elderly woman backed her car up…like foot to the floor…and practically ran over a family and she rammed about 6 cars. She got out when the car stopped and said..”Oh dear.” That was it. No sorries. I agree that the post office is a mad house. MAD.My son’s teacher told me that she blames the full moon for my son’s little stunt he pulled in class the other day. He steam rolled a bunch of kids on the carpet.PS. It’s dangerous to have that wine store in the Super Store.I always get sucked into their taste testing