Elderly Infestation

Today's post topic comes courtesy of Erin. After the following events, she said "You need to write about this on the blog". So I will do my best in not only honoring my wife's wishes, but doing justice to the portray the event as humorous as it happened.

We had a few errands to run after church yesterday and Brevin was getting hungry. No, I take that back, Brevin was already hungry. So instead of driving the 35 minutes back home just to feed him and leave again, we decided to hit up Baker's Square. The decision was more for a place we could cure his hunger than for us to eat. But hey, why not kill two birds with one stone. (I've always wondered as to the origin of that saying.)

The aforementioned (that was a big word that I had to look up how to spell) Baker's Square has a reputation for housing the elderly. It seems whenever we go there, which isn't all too often, we lower the average age by 75%. Yesterday was no difference. In fact, it seems as if it were an elderly infestation. They were everywhere! We wondered if we were walking into a retirement home by accident.

After potential parking places were taken (twice), I was already a little anxious to get in and get our name down. As I was waiting in line (or what I thought was the line) to tell the hostess party of two plus a high chair, an elderly man (who was also apparently anxious to get his name in) shoved his way in front of me all-but bowling me over. Literally! I immediately looked at Erin to see if she saw what just happened. She had a look of shock and laughter and went and hid in a corner.

After the man got through me, he stood parallel to the couple in front of me. They looked at him and said they had already gotten their name and were waiting. So of course as the hostess asked who's next, the elderly enforcer lunged at her to get his name in. Fair enough, I was next anyway, no big deal.

As I made my way back to the corner Erin had found to take refuge, I felt as though I had Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility on. I kept getting run into. Mind you it was packed in the waiting area, but there is typically some sense of order as people usually hug the walls to get out of the way. Not so with the advanced in age. They were old and had rights. Barry Sanders would have had difficulty escaping them. They were relentless. They had canes, carts, walkers, and came they came in two's. There was no getting around them.

As I finally made it to Erin's Fortress of Solitude, we were both laughing at the situation. As if we needed any more blog fodder, another elderly couple walks through the door and spies two recently vacated spots on a bench. The wife then asks the lady who was sitting there to move down to the other end of the bench so she and her husband could sit down. The funny thing is, the couple could have just taken a few more steps to get around the lady and sit down. Nope, they had her slide all the way down to the other end so the couple didn't have to walk around her!

Not long after we heard "Erin, party of two." Excellent, we get to leave this madhouse. As we were making our way up to the front, "ERIN!" was said loudly by an old man who apparently thought we were taking too long. Ironic huh? The elderly telling us to hurry up.

We were laughing all the way to our booth. Who would have thought a trip to Baker's Square could be so entertaining.

Finally seated and amidst feeding a very hungry Brevin, we hear a loud "GONG!" I look behind Erin to see an old lady had struck the suspended glass bowl looking light above her table with her cane. Classic.

Thank you Lord for the little things in life which makes us enjoy it.

I'll leave you with a quote from the great theologian Lloyd Christmas of Dumb and Dumber.

"Hey! While though slow and dangerous behind the wheel, the elderly still can serve a purpose."

—b

(Click to enlarge)