Old people drifting

[slimjim]

Why do old people when walking (particularly along pavements or down supermarket aisles) drift from side to side? Some of them can be quite crafty about it and veer just enough to make you think that you'll get by only to clip you at the last moment. Others can seem perfectly safe until they suddenly make a big change of tack cutting right across your path.

[darth vader]

It's all part of the "annoy slimjim" campaign. You'll be old one day..........

[woofgang]

why do bunches of young people walk down the road, making noise, yelling profanities, scattering rubbish and polluting the air with their cigarettes??????? Its only us middle aged types who aren't annoying :-)

[bernardo]

They do it deliberately to annoy people. It's part of getting revenge for all the young people annoying them by arrogantly and impertinently having fun and enjoying themselves while they still can, instead of habitually moaning about everything and being miserable like old people do. I think we should send some of them to Guantanamo Bay, and then they might learn to show a bit of respect for us NORMAL people.

[Miss Zippy]

They're brazen queue jumpers too.

[IggyB]

ban all meanderthols

[tartanwiz]

What happens is the this. The two old dears are intelligently discussing the permeability of the universe to quantum waves, or the statement expressed in the art of Damien Hirst, or the Pembrose effect on the political economy. When they see a younger person coming, they switch to cracked slow voices and wander about talking about Safeway's offers on cheese or what their neighbours are doing or the times of buses.

[jills]

I just hope that when I get old, I'm still with it enough (mentally and physically) to be able to behave really badly...knowing that as an OAP, you'll very probably get away with it. Queue jumping, asking for seats on buses if one isn't offered, banging into folk with my walking stick (even if I don't usually need one) and, driving really slowly to annoy all the "youngsters" behind you - laughing each time they shout or toot their horn (anyone seen old Maisie on the Karen Dunbar show??....makes me lol!)

[wildwood]

OAPs have earned the right to expect a bit of respect by not killing their children.

Oh..... and also other meaningless things such as fighting in wars to keep the country free from potential invaders, building a society which allows all to speak their mind and even radical views are tolerated, paying taxes all their life enabling all to have access to free schooling and health services.

[brawburd]

well said Wildwood, even in the 21st century it seems okay to spout discriminatory stuff about older people. Sad.

[smudge]

I think the real reason some old people drift from side to side, is that they simply don't know whether they are coming or going! Don't worry, we'll all get there one day you'll see!

[number8]

Yes, we'll all be old one day, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda (yawn), some old response to any Q criticising the old. However, they are not all sweet old things who have earned our respect for fighting in wars. For a start, the war ended 59 years ago, so those people over 75 years of age (assuming they signed up at 16 and only saw brief service) would have fought in the war, so that excuse is becoming less and less relevent. I recently, accidentally, slightly nudged an older woman (circa 70 yoa) in the ankle with a pushchair at a supermarket checkout: I profusely apologised immediately...........and received a torrent of abuse - her husband, of a similar age, also had a go. I was stunned into silence. The checkout girl and her supervisor were equally stunned. So, the fact that they have reached a great age does not automatically warrant our respect - they still have to earn it.

[spudalicious]

you'll be disheartened to hear that there is a medical explanation and its to do with the process of ageing. I'm not going to go into it but its inevitable.. don't mock it, it will happen to us all once age takes its toll

[gypsy]

all age groups do it in supermarkets they are a nuisance,,and they stand their discussing products on the shelves like they have all day to shop..thank god i now have a pc to shop online..as supermarkets and me dont get on ..their you are with over �200 worth of food and some old dear cuts you up dawdling around with a chop and a loaf in a basket,,and rude,,well i wont go their i just know when i am old i wont be that old lady dawdling around with a chop..and its also hard to get served in the post office  ,,,before anyone attacks me for being rude to the elderly as everytime i say something controversial i get attacked as though i dont have a brain or opinion,,i do like old people and help out for free at 2 charity events each year for them,,they do dawdle around streets like dolly daydreams its a fact...gypsy