When I was at the store this afternoon I got to watch a senior citizen acting like a toddler.
The man and his wife looked to be in their 70s-80s and they both came into the store hunched over using canes. The wife went shopping and the man stopped by the registers.
“IS ANYONE GOING TO HELP ME!?” He screams several times, getting louder and louder with each repetition.
It is crazy loud and busy in there and he stays standing a ways from any bagger or cashier, so of course they don’t hear him till he is practically shouting. A bagger (teenage girl) goes to see what he wants.
“I WANT SOME OF THOSE CIGARS, GODAMMIT!”
So, no fire, no medical emergency. Just an old toddler wanting his cigarettes. :rolleyes: I understand that dementia can totally destroy a person’s “social filters”, but still, it sounded like a toddler “I WANT THAT CANDY/TOY/THING!”
Why would he be yelling about wanting cigars if he wanted his cigarettes? Sounds like something was very wrong with him not that he was having a tantrum to me.
Hey, you know what? Probably back when he was young he could just walk in and pick out a cigar. They weren’t locked up in the old days. Now they are, and then the place isn’t even staffed, so you have to yell for help. Now he’s got this teenager who probably can’t even sell them to him on account of her age, so she’ll have to go find someone else. Meanwhile he’ll forget she said that, forget anyone even started to help him, and start yelling again, and he’s deaf so he doesn’t realize how loud he’s talking, and he’s got aches and pains you can’t even imagine so he’s crabby.
Or else he’s always been this way, no real way to tell.
Also, 70s isn’t that old anymore. Think of our president-elect. You think he’d walk into a store with an old woman? Hah! In fact, you think he’d walk into a store? Hah! I’ll bet his cigars are delivered by scantily clad women who bring them straight from Havana. So I’m thinking this guy you saw is probably at least in his 90s.
Some people lose their facutlies to Alzheimer’s. It’s a medical fact.
A person can turn into a real son of a bitch, but it’s not by choice, that disease does things to the brain.
You just had to deal with it annoying you. Imagine the poor SOB who has it happening to him, sees how it is changing him, knowing it will some day kill him, and not being able to do a thing about it.
Brodi: Nothing that guy said or did was as offensive as your OP. If you can’t have a little compassion for someone who may have problems you’re unaware of, I pity you.
Old people aren’t automatically entitled to respect. If they’re assholes then they’re assholes, irrespective of age. Of course, one should be aware that there may be a medical condition at the root of their behavior but that could be true of younger people too. All you have to go on, absent a knowledge of their medical history, are their actions and if they act like an asshole then the odds are that they probably are one.
My Dad back in Toronto suffered from Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s sufferers have a problem with their memories. On one of our last meetings, in about 2013, Dad told me about the car ride he and his Mom, Dad, and Brother took recently–in his father’s brand-new 1938 Chevy. In truth, Dad’s mother, father, and brother had all predeceased him, and that 1938 Chevy was long-gone.
All I could do was say, “Tell me more, Jim.” If I called him, “Dad,” he’d respond with, “Who are you? I’m nobody’s father. I have no kids.” He had no memory of my Mom (who died before Dad), or of my sister, of me. So I called him by his given name–Jim or James, or sometimes, Jamie–and was the friendly visitor who brought him coffee.
It hurt to visit, but I did, even though it was a cross-country flight to do so.
I hate Alzheimer’s. I could deal with Dad wasting away in a hospital bed, but still able to recognize me; but I couldn’t deal with the guy who taught me how to drive a car, who taught me how to shoot a rifle, and who taught me how to hit a baseball, asking me, “Who are you?”
Yes, it sounds like the man had Alzheimer’s. His wife brought him shopping with her, because leaving him home alone would have been dangerous. He wandered off to the cigar counter.
My parents went through the exact same thing. My mom couldn’t get a moment to herself, until it took a toll on her own health. That’s when my husband and I relocated back here to help take care of both of them.
Being unnecessarily judgmental of the odd actions of a disturbed senior smells like inviting a life lesson into your world, to me. Like the universe almost feels obligated to give you some first hand experience with this illness, so you actually can understand.
It might be wise to pay at least a little regard to the type learning you’re clearly begging the universe to deliver to your life, I should think.
At any rate, I highly recommend; less judgy, more lovey!
I’m not sure where everyone’s getting the Alzheimers theory from. I’ve worked in retail before and cantankerous old people are not an unusual encounter. Having said that, neither are cranky or entitled younger folks.
The man’s behavior. at least as described by the OP, was way past "cantankerous ". He even acknowledges the possibility of dementia. And then emphasizes that the annoying, toddler like sound of the man outweighs that possibility :rolleyes:
Some day it’s going to happen to someone you love, Brodi.
My mother, who is 86, has dementia. I’m babysitting her over the holidays. She does often behave very much like a toddler, shouting that she wants something and refusing to listen to reason. She’s not able to get out to the stores or otherwise we might well have incidents like the one you describe.
There’s a good reason this used to be called “second childhood.”
How much first hand experience have you had dealing with someone with dementia? That was the very first thing I thought of when I read the OP.
It’s possible that the guy was just an entitled asshole, in which case his age wouldn’t enter into it. But given that dementia is very common among the elderly, IMO it’s far more likely his behavior was due to the loss of some of his behavioral control rather than him simply being an asshole.
I would hope that people might bear this in mind when dealing with the elderly. Perhaps the OP (and you) might learn something from the responses to this thread.
That’s where you’re wrong. Medical conditions that cause people to act like jerks are far more common in older people than they are in younger people - they almost come with the territory. So while the default assumption that someone acting like a jerk really is a jerk might be reasonable in the case of a younger person, it’s far less so in the case of an older person.
