Ahh, the day can’t come a moment too soon when I can get my membership card in the Crotchety Old Guys Club. The Club has all kinds of benefits for Crotchety Old Guys, known hereafter as COG’s, because who doesn’t like acronyms? Anyway, one benefit is that you can get ten percent off your bill in any restaurant. As a COG you can leave only a 5% tip instead of the customary 15%, because you’re a crotchety old guy, and people just expect that kind of behavior. You also get to go to the front of any line, because dammit, you’re too damn old to be spending all day standing in line, and people will let you move to the front so they don’t have to listen to your grousing and bitching.
I think a cane comes with the membership card, too. Not because all COG’s need canes, but because it gives you something to wave irritably at young folk and their ilk. Or trip up running children, which is one way I plan to spend the afternoons till the Early Bird specials start at Perkins. Got my sights set on a nice antique ironwood cane with a heavy metal knob end perfect for putting dents in doors when I hammer on them, instead of knocking.
Last but certainly not least is the fact that as a card carrying COG, you can say senseless or silly things, and people will just have to take it because there’s no way to win an argument with a COG. It’s in the Club’s bylaws, I’m pretty sure. Case in point, our observations on a recent visit to a local restaurant that is a favorite with the COG set, as they have easily masticated food. COG and his wife (or caregiver, but then that’s pretty much the same thing) sat down beside us and proceeded to peruse the menu. When the waitress came by for their drink orders, the COG proceeded to tell her that they wanted “two ice teas, each.” The server was disconcerted and asked if they each wanted two ice teas, to which he replied, that of course they didn’t each want two ice teas. They each wanted an ice tea, so they wanted two ice teas.
An understandable error since the server probably wasn’t fully conversant in COG speak, which according to the handy COG manual means ‘anything I damn well want it to mean, dammit!’ So you can see why I look forward to the day when I can throw all social conventions to the winds and just be as grouchy and irritable as I want to be.