As I sit here in Starbucks trying to do my history homework, both ironically and to my pleasure, an elderly couple sits down at the table right next to me. Or I should say, slowly descends into their chairs at the table next to me. In a room full of laptops, cell phones, tablets, this couple grabs a newspaper to read from the front of the store. "Can I have a bite of your brownie?" the husband yells to his wife less than a foot across the tiny Starbucks table. A couple minutes before this question, he was yelling her name trying to get her attention to tell her that the brownie in the small bag was hers. After about ten minutes of silence, my typing away at my computer and the couple reading their newspaper the old man shouts, "I ate all of your brownie," a hint of guilt in his voice. At this point I am trying my hardest not to laugh because earlier he looked directly at the newspaper and said, in frustration, "I can't read this! How am I supposed to read this? With my glasses on or off?" pointing directly at the bolded headline of the newspaper.
This whole scene made me smile and laugh and appreciate how genuine and funny "old people" are.
1. They yell.
As the old man told his wife, "When we come back tomorrow, maybe we can get a 'ventay.'" His pronunciation of "venti" alone had me turning my head away from them to laugh. It was cute he asked her on a date to Starbucks tomorrow to "get her her coffee" and to probably eat her brownie she ordered again. The on going battle of one yelling "what?" and the other continuously repeating what they had already said is too funny for me to handle.
2. They really know how to hold a conversation.
Because this generation doesn't know how to do this very well, it's always so pleasing to have a conversation with them. They come from a generation of talking to everyone they see. My precious grandpa, Poppie, for example. We can't go anywhere without spending at least an extra two hours just talking to every person he sees. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining (I might have when I was 7 tagging along with him to his errands in town) I really respect this.
3. The stories they can tell.
On both sides of my family, my grandparents can really tell some great stories. To them it's their past, but to us it's a look into a world unknown to us.
4. The things they say.
Their terminology to gage distance with "over yonder" and the other one knowing exactly where that is is magic. When I was little, Poppie told me to "skin the cat" and I had never in my life known that that had meant to do a flip. "You better get up before the sun blisters your butt," and "He/she was smiling like a jackass eating briers," are some of my personal favorites. Oh lord the best one, Poppie used to always say "nought form nought is nought". It took me at least until I was 12 to figure out that nought equals 0. So he was basically telling me 0-0=0 but enjoying the completely confused look on my face after. There are about a million other that I can't think of that I'm just so used to hearing in their everyday jargon.
5. Their honesty.
Good Lord alive, old people will give it to you like it is. There's no sugar coating in their world.
6. Their love.
Whether its the love that they still somehow show their partners after countless years of marriage, or the love they share for their kids and grandkids and so on. I could talk about my Nanna and Poppie all day with this category. Last Christmas, Poppie went out of his way to go buy Nanna a beautiful diamond necklace. When he finally picked one out and presented it to her in front of the whole family when we were all giving out presents, Nanna gave him a big fat kiss on the lips. I swear Poppie's face got all red and he smiled as big as I've ever seen him smile. Even after 60 years of marriage, one kiss can still make Poppie smile like that.
I just hope that I am half as funny as the many old couples that I see, and I won't even mean to be funny. The elderly are really honestly the bees knees. Everything about them is so funny that you just cant help but smile when you see them but are around them. So if you know a really cool old person/grandparent, tell them how awesome they are.
