My mother had always taught me to respect my elders because they supposedly have more wisdom than the average person. So throughout all of my life, I have listened to my elders and respected them. Fortunately, the ones that I have met in life were very sweet, love to talk about their life story, share some of their best recipes, and love to have someone to listen to.
But every know and then, you’ll come across that one ol’ self-righteous hag that thinks that the world owes him or her something. They know that it would completely terrible and disrespectful if you smack them to the ground if they stepped outta line with you. And although I will not ever want to do something like that in real life, there have been plenty of times when I have body-slammed a mean ol’ lady in my mind.
For example, yesterday I was picking up a few things from the store and a cashier opened up her line and invited people over so that she can check them out. I got in the line and all of a sudden, this mean-looking ol’[ lady RUDELY informed me that I needed to let her go ahead of me. She even gave me a look as if she was telling me that I needed to do what she say.
Everything in me wanted to elbow her straight in her dentures because of her funky attitude but I politely moved and allowed her to go first. Had she simply asked me nicely if she could go ahead of me, I wouldn’t mind it at all. Like I said, I respect my elders. But for her to DEMAND that I let her go first as if I owed her something, really threw me for a loop.
I totally understand that elderly people are to be love, protected, helped, respected, and understood. When you have people out here in the world that tends to overlook elderly people, I do believe that we should be there for them as much as possible. However, I have a serious problem with the ones that expect for people to show them respect but yet they don’t show it in return. Instead, they treat you as if you should be prosecuted for breathing the same air that they breath.
So here’s what I have to say to the mean ol’ elderly men and women who treat other people like they’re inferior:
Just because you can get a senior citizen discount at The Dairy Queen doesn’t mean that people should elevate you higher than Jesus. If you want people to respect you, then you need to show respect to others as well. If you don’t wanna be disrespected, then don’t disrespect others. Translation: If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out. Considering the fact that you are indeed the elders, you all are supposed to be the voice of reason. In other words, you all are supposed to be the ones with the most wisdom and the ones that is supposed to teach the younger generations how we are supposed to treat one another. But if you go out in public (and on reality TV shows) and act like assholes, that’s the example that you leaving for all of us…and many of us will learn from your example.
Sonica
