Old People Like Mall Walking

Not only does walking around the perimeter of a mall burn a gut-busting 10 calories an hour, but it allows Old People the privilege of being out in public. It’s a pretty sweet deal – for free, Old People get to “exercise” in what they think are gorgeous shoppng pavilions, but because the mall walking occurs before business hours, the Old People may avoid teenagers, gang bangers, loiterers, high-pressure salesmen, and all other unsavories that populate shopping malls. The early hour is also handy if the Old People get lost – they are much easier to find in an empty mall than a full one. And as a benefit to the rest of us, they are gone and back in the Home Van by the time the mall opens at 10. This is necessary to the survival of the shopping mall, and thus the economy as a whole. Those engaging in retail therapy  are looking to buy stuff to fill the void in their souls caused by aging, mortality, and their own failings. They don’t need a (barely) living, haunting reminder of all that – Old People – when they’re trying to buy khakis, ankle boots, and horse-sized cinnamon rolls.

Old People Write Checks

• Old People hate modern technology, such as debit cards, which they don’t use because “nobody told [them] how to use the darn thing.” This is something Old People say a lot when they don’t know the ins and outs of something incredibly basic – nobody taught them how to use self-explanatory technology (see also: cell phones, video devices).

• The handful of Old People that may have once used a debit card don’t anymore because their money got stolen because they used “1234″ as their PIN.

• Old People like cursive writing, and checks are one of the few opportunities where it can be utilized.

• In the olden tymey days, where Old People once lived, only really fancy rich people had checking accounts. Everybody else paid for things with coins, buttons, and livestock. When they write checks today, Old People feel like really fancy rich people.

• Checks are a great way for Old People to kill a few more minutes of their tedious, waning days while simultaneously fostering a false sense of importance by taking forever to write a check.

Old People Like to Tell Everybody That They Are “A Senior Citizen”

Because otherwise, how would we know?

Old People Anachronistically Like Lawrence Welk

The Old People of today grew up in the ‘50s, so theoretically they should be forever attached to the pop culture of that time, things like poodle skirts, Pat Boone, and cheerful segregation. And yet, the easy listening stations still play Glenn Miller and your local PBS affiliate still runs The Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night. Because Old People, who enjoy public television because it is both free (like other network TV), and incredibly slow-paced (unlike other network TV) enjoy Glenn Miller and The Lawrence Welk Show. But no matter their precise vintage – 70 years old, 80 years old, 81 years old – Old People will always do and like the same things done and liked by previous generations of Old People. The Old People of three decades ago would claim that ice cream once cost a nickel. It did. Today’s Old People do the same – but ice cream has cost well over a dime since the late 1940s. Similarly, Old People enjoy this bizarre, pastel-colored, German-laced polka-and-standards show out of nostalgia. That may be, but if so, it’s out of nostalgia for watching it with their grandparents. And so, today’s Young People will one day watch The Lawrence Welk Show, simply because they will be Old People. Perhaps it is because Death is nigh for Old People, and Heaven probably looks a lot like the set of The Lawrence Welk Show.

Old People Are So Proud of You for Graduating

Now, you’re not such a bigshot that you can’t come over here and give your Grandpa a nice, firm handshake, are you, Young Man?

Old People Love Hard Candy

The usefulness of the taste buds of an Old Person have dwindled to near zero at this point in their lives, lo, these same taste buds that once tasted ketchup-soaked porterhouse steaks, the glorious defeat of Tojo, and the supple, milky breasts of Maragaret Truman. The closest an Old Person can get now to enjoying the taste of something, anything, is with the powerful, near painful (to the Young Person) sweetness of hardened, sticky, individually-wrapped butterscotch discs. Also appealing to Old People are that they are a bargain, as a bag of 500 butterscotch candies costs about a dollar, lasts forever, and don’t have to be stored in that pesky electronic thugamaboo – a pocketbook or porcelain dish will do nicely.

Old People Have A Mathematical Theorem For Determining Whether They Should Drive or Not Go There at All

Wherein that the distance is such that a Young Person could comfortably walk there, the Old Person shall drive. Wherein the distance is such that it is too far for a Young Person to comfortably walk, even by an excess of one city block, the Old Person shall never go to this place ever, as it is of a great, unmanageable, and remote distance.

Old People Do Not Necessarily Like Jay Leno

As Conan O’Brien took over the venerable Tonight Show institution last week from horseless carriage enthusiast and budding Old Person Jay Leno, there was much speculation in the media that O’Brien’s clever, edgy humor would make for an unpopular, uncomfortable transition from Leno’s trite, obvious jokes and vaguely condescending easygoing manner which lulled those with no will to live to sleep each night. In other words, Old People love Jay Leno and will not like Conan O’Brien.

But Old People do not like Jay Leno. Jay Leno’s show was on at 11:30 at night. Old People are off in Tylenol-induced sleepyland at 11:30 at night, dreaming of dance halls, the Andrews Sisters, and homemade rhubarb cobbler. Jay Leno’s demographic is comprised of the mediocre of all ages, not exclusively Old People.

Jay Leno may do better at his new 10 p.m. timeslot because the Old People who might like him and would be a bit more likely to discover him should they be up randomly in the dead of (slightly earlier) night due to sleepwalking or the need to vomit may not be around when Leno’s earlier debut occurs on September 14. Between now and then are three long months of summer, which means summer heat, which is the natural predator of Old People. At least two thirds of all Old People will be dead by the end of summer. So when you smell that leaky dead Old Person coming from the upstairs apartment, think of Jay Leno, and wish him well.

Old People Like Coins and Coin Purses

The Old People useage of the coin purse harkens back to a time in which coins alone were enough with which to purchase goods and services. Because of this, Old People (at the time, Young People) kept many coins on their person, and would store them in flashy coin purses, retrieved from a pocket or pocketbook with great flourish to many “oohs” and also “ahs.” A paisley or floral coin purse was how you let the world know you were somebody, especially that Gladys Henderson next door with her chintzy dime store coin purses she tried to pass off as coming from Lohman’s the downtown department store.

Old People Only Order Coffee at Fast Food Restaurants

The constant to the point of saturation availability of one-time occasional, hard to come by treats such as hamburgers and Frenched-fried potatoes is unfamiliar and bewildering to Old People, who once commonly used store brand corn flakes to stretch their meat dollar, as instructed by homemaker magazines, and who lived through the War and or the Depression, as they will tell you upwards of 80 times a day. And soda was to be enjoyed only for medicinal purposes, obtained from the local druggist, or on a teenaged date with next door neighbor Chip Whitley, or, for the fellas, his sister Sissy Whitley. So, when faced with a fast food restaurant situation, Old People only ever order coffee. Coffee warms their cold, decaying wraithlike bodies, reminds them of the War (they drank it to stay warm and alert on the Maginot Line), and it is very cheap (at least at fast food places), sometimes even free to only Old People. This makes Old People feel special. It also takes a really long time to drink, and Old People tend to not like to get up for a while once they’ve endured the ordeal of bending their knees and sitting.