It helps keep your back from hurting if you have something to lean on. 
I’m an old guy. I’m 79 years old. I’m retired. I don’t do one damn thing that I don’t want to do. I go to bed when I’m sleepy and get up when I’m not. I live alone and I drive a Hyundai Elantra. Any questions? And get the hell off my yard-----
I used to use a basket exclusively, since generally everything I need from a single trip will fit in a basket. I noticed I was spending a fair amount of time setting the basket down, picking it back up, shifting it to my other arm so I could grab something, or trying the “hang the basket on my forearm and use both hands to grab something” maneuver, which seems to work less than half the time.
I realized that with a cart, I always have the quickest, least awkward use of both hands. So I just started grabbing a cart at the entrance when I walked in, then dropping it off the same place (I never have more than two bags worth of groceries). The store I frequent most often has mini-carts (about half the length of a regular cart, a shallower bed, and no child seating) and I take those if they are available.
I’m 58, but I still feel like I’m 30.
Me: “What the fuck are those fucking old people doing?”
Ukulele Lady: “They’re the same age we are.”
Me: “Look at those old rich bastards ordering lobster. Up against the wall, motherfuckers.”
Ukulele Lady: “They’re the same age we are. And we’re richer than they are.”
Well, I’ll be 60 in the fall. I’d rather anticipate slower reflexes and work with them now than very suddenly discover my reaction times are too slow, or I get distracted by something when I drive, and kill or injure somebody. Kids, it could be YOUR life I’m saving, since you’re busy walking into traffic and gawking at your glowing rectangle. Talk about situational awareness - there actually is a world beyond your phone.
I’ve also found no one who thinks I drive too slowly is ever willing to pay my speeding tickets, or the increase in my automobile insurance. Andy Rooney would be asking, now, why is that anyway?
Having a cruise control and setting to to 1 mph below the speed limit virtually guarantees not getting speeding tickets. And a GPS showed me speeding isn’t worth it; when I drive three hours without speeding, my arrival times changes by… four minutes. Woo hoo. And that four minutes mean I risk my life and property and other people’s live and property and increasing my expenses for… four additional minutes.
But as long as we’re being ageist:
Maybe we could ask why so many younger folks can’t look away from their glowing rectangles. I’ve got a smart phone but I assure you there’s nothing on there so important it can’t wait until I’m back on the sidewalk.
Or why they can’t read books or even short stories. If it’s more than 140 characters long, it can’t be important.
Or do basic arithmetic with a pencil and paper.
Or watch a movie or listen to a three minute song without running their mouths.
Or sit through a silent movie, or one in black and white.
Or ignore their phones in a movie theater so there isn’t constant booping and beeping and people yammering and a glow like Chernobyl. I didn’t pay ten bucks to sit in a dark room and listen to half of a conversation about your toenail fungus.
Or watch a movie where there isn’t +!+$, explosions, and automatic weapons fire. Let me add I have nothing against any of those three, especially the first, but really, you can make good movies without counting on them.
Or… or… wait, what was I complaining about again?
- [Some] old people go to bed early or take naps during the day because their sleep sucks. They also often end up staying up late because they dread lying in bed for a couple of hours trying to sleep, or waking several times for extended periods of time in the middle of the night, and getting less restful sleep overall even when they do manage to actually sleep. You’d probably be tired early too if you spent only about half of the 7–8 hours you spent in bed actually asleep.
Your sleep patterns change throughout your life. Teenagers (usually defined as between the ages of 11 and 22) have different sleep patterns than they did when they were younger due to hormonal changes that shift their natural sleep/wake times to late nights and late morning. Since these hormonal shifts are seen in other mammals too, it’s not because teenagers are lazy or staying up too late on purpose.
TLDR: You stay up late because you’re young. Old people want to go to sleep early because they’re old.
- [Some] old people [may] drive “slowly” because they know damn well that their abilities are not as good as they used to be and they take steps to compensate. Even if they are as fit and capable as they were when younger, older drivers tend to be safer drivers, getting into fewer accidents mostly because they obey traffic laws, pay attention to signs, and because they have more experience in driving in adverse conditions. Younger drivers — especially new drivers — get into more accidents because they take risks and don’t have skills to compensate when things go wrong. So even if their reflexes, hearing, eyesight, and mobility are better, they fuck things up when old farts would already have slowed down and/or hit the brakes.
FTR, I’m in my mid-40s and still have reflexes good enough to beat almost all of my teenage students at red hands. Better eyesight than most of them too. So it’s not like I’m coming at this from the perspective of an actual old dude. Somewhere around your late 20s to 30s most of us realize that driving fast and recklessly in the wrong time and place is fucking stupid and gets people killed, and we’ve also often had a couple of close calls that tend to remind us of how suddenly and unexpectedly driving can go wrong.
TLDR: Young people drive fast because they’re stupid and inexperienced, and old people drive slow[er] because they know better by then.
I just love reading these threads about old people and why they all do certain things. Just like I love reading threads about fat people, and short people, and Chinese people.
Oh, actually, no I don’t.
Because it’s easier to push a shopping cart than to bring a walker.
One of these days I’m gonna rent one of those electric scooters they have parked at the entrance to the grocery store, even though I don’t need it. Yet. Whee! I like a cart, I like a small cart, but it’s easier to lug around my big old-lady purse in it (secured with a seat belt, so don’t get any ideas). And my hands, truthfully, are getting weaker. I could carry a shopping basket for one or two items, but usually a 6-pack of beer or soda is on the list.
I don’t like driving fast. Or at night, or in rush hour. Frankly, I don’t like driving at ALL. I generally stay within the speed limit and keep to the right. Your tailgating me because you have to get to happy hour somewhere matters not. I will slow down if you keep that shit up. When the time comes, I will happily hang up my keys and nag younger people for rides.
WELL, then you my friend need to google Charles “flamethrower” Tzo. A five foot 225 pound 62 year old Taiwanese American who jumped the Snake River Canyon even though Evel Kneivel couldn’t.
It doubles as a walker. My mother was in seventh heaven when she discovered that both her shopping cart and the carts at the supermarket were more comfortable than a cane, less conspicuous than a walker. For someone like her, who hates the idea of anybody thinking she’s weak, it’s great. In fact, when she was telling me about it one of the things she said was “now I know why every time I see Mrs. Sanz outside of church she’s got her cart!” Mrs. Sanz is a neighbor who’s got some sort of Parkinson-style problem and who’s every bit as proud about “what will people think” as my mother is.
My mom calls this driving in her own little bubble.
I love my bubble.
Where I live (S.F. Bay Area) it’s not old people who drive giant sedans like the Buick Roadmaster. It’s poor people. No one around here who can afford a newer car buys a boat like a Roadmaster. There are lots of old people around here who drive Hondas and Toyotas.
There are plenty of giants SUVs and pickup trucks, though, and it’s not the elderly who drive these things.
I use a cart because I only have one good hand. I can put the goods between my left arm and my chest, but a cart is easier. Then my good hand is free to pick up other stuff.
If the cashier asks “Is one bag okay?” I always say “Yes. And my one good hand (waving right hand) thanks you.”
Yes, but 15 mph on a regular road?
Then don’t. Problem solved
You need to dump her and get a newer model, preferably one willing to enable your delusions.
My arrest-me-yellow 5-speed Focus killed my clutching knee and now they are talking about knee replacement. Oh, the joys of driving small, vaguely sporty, cars.
That’s cuz old folks can’t get into them.
Generally I find that there are “pods” of cars going at different speeds. I’m happiest when I find a pod going a speed I like and get up ahead of it a little. That way the speed demons run up the back end of someone else first. By the time the finally get around to me they’re happy just to go past and down the road. Also if my pod catches up to a slower pod I’m the first so I have the most room to get around them before the rest of the pod catches up and things get thick.
There is a young-ish guy (looks about 30) in my condo complex who drives a black Buick sedan. I don’t know what model it is, but it appears to be almost new and is always immaculately clean and shiny. When he parks it, it’s like watching a brain surgeon at work.
I’ve considered asking him, “Aren’t Buicks old-people cars?” but he looks kind of tough and I’m afraid he might take a swing at me.