Silly Old People

Disclaimer: The names of the people in the following stories have been changed for their protection. Also, these people have either given me the direct approval to mention them in my blog, or there is no chance in Hades that they would ever see this site. Senior citizens don't believe in blogs as a general rule.

My mother-in-law, let's call her...Jammye, has been calling my husband (her son) in a state of confusion since the birth of this website. She couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why this website wouldn't pop up when she entered the address. We assumed she was simply entering the unnecessary "www" before the address; she swore she wasn't. Finally she sent us an email saying "This is what comes up:" followed by a Google link saying that the search produced no results. As it turns out, for the 10+ years that [Jammye] has been using the internet, she has only gotten to webpages by typing the page address into a Google search. My question: Why has this never created problems prior to this week? Anyway, we told her to enter the address into the address bar at the top of the page, but she didn't know what that meant. My husband calmly walked her through the step-by-step process of correctly entering a webpage address...and then asked her if I could use this encounter in my blog.


Yesterday at work, I was asked to page someone over the intercom. At the time, there was an older (than me) lady standing about 5 feet away from me. I didn't think much about it, and I proceeded to make my announcement. After I was finished, a beat passed. I then saw a light flick on in the lady's brain, and she said "Was that your voice I just heard over the intercom?!?" Me: "Um, yes." Her: "I didn't realize it was you that made those announcements!" I have worked at my company for 3 1/2 years, and she has been around much longer than I have. So, for at least 4 years, this woman has been wondering from where the phantom intercom voice originates...much to her surprise, it comes from the receptionist's desk in the front lobby. Whodathunk??


My grandfather has always had a love affair with flea markets. Everything about them makes him happy. When I was in junior high, he bought a lot (not "a lot," literally--a "lot") of rusty, broken bicycles. He couldn't have spent more than $10 on the whole pile of them. He thought he'd make a sweet profit by selling them individually for $20 per bike. He put a For Sale sign in the front yard. After months with no takers, finally a little boy from across the street stopped by to ask about purchasing one of the bikes. "Mr. [Merk], would you be willing to take $15 instead of $20 for one of your bikes." My grandpa said "No."


The first time my husband met my grandpa, he was asked if he needed any green markers. My husband said "Um, I'm not sure. Why?" My grandpa then dragged out a box at least 5'X3'X5' completely full of markers, green markers, that he had "scored" at a flea market. These were not just your ordinary green markers; they were the Crayola Color Stamp markers with smiley face stamps in place of the marker tip. He must have had a very specific clientelle in mind when he made the decision that these markers would be a smart investment.


Silly old people.
Until tomorrow.


~Heather