The Bias of a Young Person

I would be the first person to tell anyone that I'm old-fashioned. I love history and old things, and even old people. But only nice old people; nice old people are honestly really cool. They have all this wisdom and stories to tell about the past. Unfortunately, in my experience, older people tend to be on the unhappy side. I'm not saying young people are all happy go-lucky, but I've met more than a few old people that are just generally grumpy individuals. This has led to a few unpleasant experiences with older teachers and retail workers.

This rant was brought one because I was just at Barnes and Noble with my friend, and I had one of my first bad experiences with an employee. The reason I said "one of the first" was because I've had bad experiences with their paranoid floor walkers before, but that's a story for another day. Me and my friend Galya had picked out maybe five or six books and were sitting looking through them together. We got up quickly to come to the bathroom and came back and the books were gone. One of the older women who worked there turned to us and in an irritated tone told us to not do that again because she had to put all the books back. We explained that we only left for a minute and that we planned to put them back later, to which she replied, "Just never do that again. One book at a time, girls."

The thing about old people is they think that teenagers are children. Younger people have a more recent memory of what being a teenager was like, and also lived in an era more similar to ours, and have a better understanding of us crazy youth. This year I am fortunate of to have quite the assortment of young teachers. My oldest teacher is my mom's exact age and, like my mom, has three kids. And my mom is not old. Out of my other five teachers, one is newly married, three are engaged, and one is single. I'd say they're all around their late 20s and early 30s, which is the best age for a high school teacher. They relate to us better and respect us more.

I think my ultimate goal in life is to be a happy old person. Just to be surrounded by a multi-generational family, eating delicious food, telling stories, and being experienced, that's what I want from my life. If I could be a more motherly version of Betty White my life would be complete. Even though I'll never be quite that funny, it's nice to dream. Because the truth is I'm not afraid of growing up, I'm afraid of not doing enough before it happens. I want to be the kind of old person where someone says something, and then I say, "That reminds me of the time I was staying in a floating village in Vietnam..." and then the person I'm talking to says, "You've stayed in a floating village in Vietnam?" And then I'll say, "Of course I have, haven't I told you that? Here have a cookie, you're too thin." The only reason the Vietnam thing popped into my head is because I was watching the Travel Channel earlier.

Happy birthday to Elvis Presley, Stephen Hawking, and David Bowie. That sentence contained so much amazing I think I might cry.

Speaking of crying, if every single attendant at my funeral doesn't cry I will be watching them and I will be SUPER pissed off.