MOVE IT, BABY....

You know I’ve had it up to here – no, up to here – with old people complaining about everything under the sun, the moon…and on rare occasions Pluto. What gives them the right to expect better treatment than the rest of us? Just because without them we wouldn’t be alive doesn’t give them a pass on life’s realities. Old age stinks but so does most fast food. Do you hear a greasy, fat-filled hamburger complain about arthritis?

Come on, grandma and grandpa, suck it up! Okay, I’ll give you that your body breaks down, your kids don’t appreciate you, people ignore your opinions, that government deficits has made your social security check about as useful as a goiter and that if you’re a gent you suddenly have an urge to wear silly baseball caps and if you were once a “hot momma” you insist on wearing loud polyester pant-suits. What the hell do you expect if you smell like an overripe cheese, appreciation and respect? Fogetaboutit!

The reason for this diatribe is some old dame in Los Angeles made a federal case about getting a $114 ticket for taking too long to cross a street. She began shuffling with her cane across a street when the light was green, but was unable to make it to the other side before it turned red. The motorcycle cop who ticketed her said she was obstructing traffic. Damn right! Did she really expect pollution spreading, gas guzzling cars to wait until she made it to the other side? No way – the Old Geezer would have leaned on my horn and tapped the old bitch with my bumper if I was there. Drivers have places to go and people to see.

This subversive, lame 78-year old kvetched loud and long, “I think it’s completely outrageous,” she said, “He treated me like a six-year-old, like I don’t know what I’m doing.” If the woman, who claims she’s a Cherokee medicine woman, really was one she’d rub some magic mud on her game leg and be able to hucklebuck across the street doing the rain dance before the light turned yellow.

The police defend the ticket by claiming that they’re cracking down on people who improperly cross streets too slowly. “We’d rather have angry pedestrians than pissed off drivers.” “I can go halfway, then the light changes,” she explained. My answer to that is let her stand in the middle of the street, grab a red cape and act like a matador as the cars swipe by her. If it’s that important that she get to the other side of the street there are lots of ways to do it. She could roller-blade across? Use an electric scooter? Sit on a leaf blower and zoom there? And, and, did she ever think of calling a taxi? Probably wouldn’t cost her much – a few hundred bucks especially if the diaper-head driving took her the scenic route.

I have no sympathy for this senior citizen. It’s time we stopped pandering and feeling sorry for them. “Wait! I’ve got a cramp in my leg can you help me up? Oy, slowly, I’m old.”