Old People

These are three peculiar encounters I had with old people. They occurred somewhat recently.

The first one happened while browsing the clearance aisle at Best Buy. I heard the braying of a slightly out-of-tune harmonica. Initially I thought a disgruntled employee was playing his shitty Bob Dylan covers over the speakers, but as I moved through the aisles, the harmonica got louder.

I turned the corner and nearly crashed into an old man jamming on a harmonica with one hand and slapping his knees with the other. In between knee slaps, the old man would shout "Hoo! Hoo!" at people wandering through the store.

We made eye contact. The old man slapped his right knee and winked at me.

"Hoo!" he said. An invitation to partake in his jamboree.

I shook my head and kept walking.

The second one happened while I was looking for a keyboard. Maybe the first old man's enthusiastic jam session inspired me. Made me want to pick up an instrument. Express myself through music. Whatever it was, I walked from Best Buy to Guitar Center and started perusing the merchandise.

I had no idea there were so many keyboards. There was this little tiny one you could hook up to your computer. There was a huge synthesizer with a sign next to it that read "Learn to be the next Skrillex!" There were short ones, long ones, nice ones, Kong ones. Actually, they were Korg keyboards, but 'Korg' doesn't rhyme with 'long.'

I ended up purchasing a 61-key Yamaha PSR-E243 Portable Arranger. I don't know what any of that means and I didn't have time to ask because an energetic old man kept following me around and shouting things at me. It made me uncomfortable.

They weren't really directed at me, they were just shouted in my general direction. I think.

Honestly, I couldn't make out what he was saying. He sounded like Swedish Chef if Swedish Chef had just snorted a line of pure Colombian cocaine.

Here are a few choice quotes:

"Here ba her ya, boy!"
"Whatza you goza, boy?!"
"Nine der tisky fallumphial, boy!!"

I could make out the word 'boy.' That was it.

He shouted at me as I selected my keyboard. He shouted at me as I paid for my purchase. He shouted at me as I walked out the door. He's probably still in that Guitar Center now, shouting at me. Or towards me.

"Jenga iza noya, boy."

The third happened last week. A few co-workers and I stepped outside to get some air when an elderly woman walked by and told us not to sit on the guard rail because we could fall backwards and get run over and die. She said she saw it happen a few years ago.

We then talked for nearly half an hour. The conversation was mostly one-sided (her talking to us), but it went all over the place.

Here are the numbers:

She was 88.
She spoke 7 different languages.
She studied for 19 years.
She lived in 26 different countries.
She was a singer, a dancer, an entertainer.
She didn't like the fact that young women today let their cheeks hang out of their shorts.
And she was appreciative of how big the sun looked that day.

She then sang a short song for us and left.

Old people really don't care do they? Doesn't matter where they are or who they're with, they wear whatever they want, say whatever they want, do whatever they want. And who's going to stop them? Living for so long in this world, they deserve to act that way. It must be liberating, the freedom to just not give a fuck anymore.

The physical aspect of being old must suck, but being able to play a harmonica in a Best Buy and shout at people?

I can't wait to be old.