Crotchety Old Men

Every parent who has been out of the house with her children has run into a Crotchety Old Man (COM). These are the retirees who are so old that they don’t remember what it was like to be a parent, let alone a kid.

They stare at your children with an evil eye that rivals Sauron. They complain loudly that your children aren’t behaving themselves. They whine at the top of their lungs about “parents these days, who don’t control their children.” They make an outing with your children miserable.

Even mothers of well-behaved children, when faced with a COM, want to simply crawl under the nearest table. If your kids aren’t the best behaved (i.e., they’re normal), you want to disappear into the wall.

Solution: stare back with a ferocity. Start explaining loudly to your children that they need to be quieter, less rowdy, whatever, because there are men in this world who are SO OLD that they don’t remember what it was like to be a child. The children must try very hard not to upset the poor old man, because, undoubtedly, he is somewhat befuddled by age and might forget where he is, poor thing.

This usually incites a round of serious discussion on the problems of aging. Curious children are good, right? Feel free to fill them in on such problems as fecal incontinence and prostatic hypertrophy (you might want to leave out erectile dysfunction, unless you want to explain it). Now who wants to crawl under the table?

Unfortunately, my husband is well on the way to becoming a COM. He has recently taken to asking, not too subtly, for a table away from rowdy children at restaurants. His excuse: he had four kids, they’re growing up, and he doesn’t have to put up with it anymore. I worry about him, sometimes.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

1. Crotchety Old Men (Sunday Rehash)
2. Pregnancy Rots Your Brain
3. The Six O’Clock Parent (Mother’s Day Special Rehash)
4. The Six O’Clock Parent
5. Why “The Mother’s Handbook?”

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.