Greetings Fashionistas!
FASHIONGRANNY will be writing her column every other issue going forward, as she sees there’s a whole world out there just hollerin’ for her fashion expertise! Thanks to all my fervent readers and fans, I truly appreciate your loyalty!
My “holler back” this issue is for Seniors Only. So gather together all ye who are long in the tooth and listen up! This column is for you!
Dear FASHIONGRANNY,
I know you live in the Lowcountry and I think you’ve revealed you’re a senior. So my question is, “Have you ever shopped “Senior Shopping Day” at Chain Grocery Store, In a Town Near Us, SC.? Our age group is so quick to judge and we seem to have a bit of Turrets, as anything (and everything!) was coming out of the shoppers’ mouths! I was so embarrassed. Aren’t we, our generation, supposed to be the last of polite society and demonstrating such?
Signed, Shocked At Me Aisle 10
Dear Shocked At Me Aisle 10,
I do live in the Lowcountry and I am senior, thanks for paying attention! You might not believe this, but while you were in shock in Aisle 10, I was in shock in Aisle 9!
I’ve been to that same store on a same “Senior Wednesday” and you’re, of course, talking about out of control old people! Gloves off! Shocking really. It gives one a bit of a jolt, it does!
“What does this have to do with Fashion, FASHIONGRANNY?”
I’m talking High Fashion, the high Fashion of Etiquette, the Foundation for all those beautiful rags you wear, the Golden Rule and its application in society. If anybody knows the correct and incorrect ways to conduct oneself, it’s the old folks! Right?
(Now before a fellow senior writes with complaint that they were not “out of control”, let me say, many shoppers were normal and lovely. Perhaps you were one of them.)
Actually, young and old can benefit from this column, we can say, “Forgive us Young Folks!” but Seniors in especial should take heed, as the etiquette I witnessed firsthand, from my age group, that dreaded discount day, was painfully embarrassing and the “do me” attitude in general made me want to bury my head in the sand or somewhere deep in the marsh! OMG! to use the vernacular of the day! What’s up Granny and Gramps? Or should I say “Grumps and Grumpier“?
What you talkin’ ‘bout FASHIONGRANNY?
Here’s a little story, with a gentle spanking for the offenders, an eye-opening for the sometimes guilty in thought or deed, and a recognition that it is us “old people” who have the knowledge of a better youth and tools with which to carve out our Golden Years in peace. That’s the buzzword. Peace.
It’s simple. It’s our manners that separate the wheat from the chaff. It is the “civil” in us that keeps us from the animals and at the top of the food chain. Our chronological group was taught well in the full application of those manners. We know our compass points and how to tell time on an analog watch. The current generation on the whole cannot do this.
I know as baby boomers we’re tired, and everybody living should have always had manners! They don’t! We do. We actively created the World in which we live. We did so much inventing in the Post War years, so much plastic and hope of disposable everything! We think we’re entitled!
Our inventions made it easier for the next generation and easier plus simpler for even the next! Simpler! Simpleton!
It’s simple to get mad and act a fool at our age – next buzzword, Age – because the checker “scanned your Ensure and the “extra 5% doesn’t show on the register”. Do you want your epitaph to read, ”Dropped dead in a long line at the grocery store by heart attack, in argument with Wayne, the cashier, over a un-scannable coupon”? That’s what I perceived to be a potential outcome all around me! Too much pressure!
Forget about “Girls Gone Wild”; it was “Seniors Gone Wild”! Not with sex, but with abandon, in a self-centered way. Like you might get hit with a pocketbook or shot with an AK (for illustration purposes only) any second.
Well! I never saw anything like the couples – the truth,” old couples” – shopping together and raising hell in the checkout lines! It seemed each line had a worse scenario than the last, with Mom and Pop dressed almost alike in khaki shorts and patterned golf shirts in one winding line, and the Ancient Mariner and his 84 year old wife in gladiator sandal heels in another.
I’ve never seen so many old people shopping together ever that I recall. You can tell it’s a regular Wednesday thing on a retiree’s list. Monday, Mah Jong, Tuesday, Tennis, and Wednesday, well “Senior Wednesday” is the day “I go out in public and scream and demand my rights to any random cashier at the grocery store!”
All 13 checkout lines were steaming and teeming with writhing bitter old people spitting and snapping at workers, and showing absolutely no love, example, or reason why we old folks shouldn’t be shuttled off immediately to death camps! I got scared.
I was also peeved because now I felt I had to be extra nice to the cashier when it was my long-awaited turn. Long awaited, for as many seniors complained and forced management to come forward, the wait in line was longer. This gave FASHIONGRANNY an out from the madness and a chance to see what the peeps were wearing. I started staring. Why not? The whole store had a vibe of chaos and doom at the hands of geriatrics!
We’re going to die!
Angry Stepford Wives and husbands, foodstuff on golf shirt fronts and bifocals were the norm. I could relate. I laughed out loud!
Anyhow, I don’t get it. I don’t get how we old folks can allow ourselves to act out so inappropriately, when we are the last generation to know better? When did we stop being mannerly, patient and polite? If not us, who is going to teach the next generation?
Why are we so angry?
What I saw at Senior Discount Day was a reverse Lord of the Flies. It was old folks losing all sense of propriety. When in packs, there is a “free for all” mentality that’s not pretty!
I think that if we don’t want to be taken away to a FEMA camp, or rejected for a kidney transplant because of our age, we better play nice, and by doing so we insure a more mannerly environment for us – and everyone else – going forward. Yelling at the cashier on Discount Day as a destination is crazy! I hope this column helps.
FASHIONGRANNY will be teaching a series of classes this Fall semester at OLLI, USCB, and right Downtown Beaufort! How cool is that? Look for the series on “How old folks fit in and the navigation of a youth oriented culture,” something like that. It fits right in with the above topic of Senior Etiquette. More about that as the months move ahead.
