Age and Irresponsibility

The other day, having left the beauty parlor too late to indulge in the manicure and pedicure I'd wanted, I arrived in the neighborhood where my job is a bit earlier than I'd planned.  Having not eaten all day I decided to stop at a little dive of a restaurant that I know of.  (This place makes great Spanish food, gives you a lot of it and is cheap but I digress.)   So I turn onto the street and look for a parking spot.  I was lucky.  There was a spot so I proceeded to pull up alongside the car in front of the spot and I stop to put the car in reverse.  I look in my rear view mirror and see that there's someone riding my ass making it impossible for me to park (Hello!  Does the word "tailgating" hold any meaning for you?)  So I sit there.  The light changes and everyone behind the guy behind me starts honking their horns.  I don't budge because I'm waiting for the fool behind me to go around me.  The light changes again.  I still don't move.  Eventually a guy wearing a Verizon uniform suggests I move up so they can pass.  (As it turns out no one was moving because of the phone company van which was jutting out so the other cars couldn't pass either.)  So I pull up to clear the way for the other cars to pass so I can park my car and get my food.  As the driver in the car who was directly behind me (the one who was riding my ass needlessly) starts to pass me I feel my car shaking.  The guy is scraping up my car!  I'm trying to get his attention but he's freakin' oblivious.  Then he finally gets by and keeps going on his merry way.  Because of the heavy traffic I can't get out of my car and I can't see his license plate.  When I finally get to leave my car I see a huge scrape on my bumper. Naturally, when I start yelling about tracking down the son of a bitch, the guy in the Verizon uniform says "He's a very old man let it be."

Excuse me?  Let it be?  Is this guy out of his bleeping' mind?  The old man just scraped up my car.  Technically he just left the scene of an accident.  Let's forget the fact that my car is a piece of crap.  It's my piece of crap and when someone scrapes it up in my presence, the least they can do is acknowledge that they were wrong and offer up an apology.  The odds are that I won't take it any further.  But to keep moving along as though nothing had happened when he had to have felt the vibrations is unforgivable and inexcusable no matter how old you are.  And why the hell should I let it go because he's old?

When you're a very small child people excuse all kind of rude and obnoxious behavior because you don't know any better.  However after a couple of years one is expected to behave properly.  Eventually one is expected to take responsibility for what one does.  So when does the reverse occur?  How is it that the same people we are supposed to revere because of their age and experience are also the one's we're supposed to excuse because of their age?  Does that make any sense to you?

Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm inclined to disrespect my elders.  I'm not advocating being unnecessarily nasty to the elderly and I'm not saying we should gather them up and leave them on an iceberg and shove off.  But exactly how much am I supposed to swallow in order to pay proper homage to the aged?  It's one thing to listen to the same oft repeated story a million and one times and quite another to ignore property damage and what is technically a crime.  In fact I think it is more disrespectful to patronize the man by ignoring such an offense when a younger person would face your wrath.  Besides willfully allowing the man go get away with such lousy driving makes it bad for everyone else.  It is after all drivers like this man who blissfully move along after causing damage who make people lobby their legislators for laws requiring retesting after a certain age.  And as everyone who drives can attest to, after years of driving and picking up some rather bad habits no one, young or old, wants to face the road test again.  The odds are if one had to test multiple times after getting the license one would end up having to take mass transit and that sucks no matter what age you are.

<Sigh>  Unfortunately, all this is moot.  I never got the man's license plate number and there's a scrape on my bumper that I refuse to pay to have fixed.  But the next time something like this happens you can bet that I'm getting the license plate number.  There's nothing I hate more than being screwed.