Greypower

There is a large cohort of grey hairs that take my train line after the morning rush every so often. They seem to know what carriage to take and their numbers progressively increase as the train nears the city, until they have reached critical mass and everyone under the age of 65 has given up their seat.

Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with giving up my seat to my elders, in fact one of my pet peeves is when people do not give up their seats, but it fascinates me how the grey hairs (I assume some sort of glee club or 'over x age' social group) flex their collective muscles on these outings. I have watched on a couple of occasions as the train will pull up at a stop and Doreen, Charlie, Shirl and Mavis get on, chirpily greeting the others who are already on board. At this point, woe betide the younger person who is messing up their seating plan. If there are 2 oldies in a seat for 4, the oldies will proceed to smile sweetly but pointedly while their mates stand around looking distressed, until the younger passengers move. This is regardless of whether the train is full or not and you should see them grin and settle into their newly claimed seats once the young uns have been evicted.

It reminds me of some great quotes that I aspire to:

"I hope I grow old disgracefully. That's very important.
Thankfully, the older I get, the sillier I become." Phyllida Law.

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we have no money for butter.
And I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth."

And finally, a nice one for anyone foolish enough to be undertaking post-grad study:

"The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."
George Bernard Shaw.

Amen to that!