A Day in the Life of My Grandma
Or Why it’s Better to be a Senior Citizen than a Sophomore in College
I spent last weekend in New York City. My fun, young aunt Jenn was in town, so I knew it was going to be a great time. This is the aunt who’s the in-between generation of the family, who had her first cigarette with my mom when Jenn was in college and who, in turn, taught me how to play my first round of beer pong. What was I realized this weekend, however, was that, my whole life, I’ve been focusing on the wrong side of this crazy-fun family!
My Aunt Jenn was in town with her husband for his father’s 65th birthday. My Uncle Ron is Israeli and I only vaguely remember meeting his parents at Ron and Jenn’s wedding when I was just a tot, at which point I couldn’t understand anything spoken in their heavy accents. Boy have I been missing out. Ron’s father decided that for his 65th birthday he wanted to “be young” and go to a club. So last Saturday in New York City, Ron and Jenn, two 65+ year old couples, my two brothers and I, filed in to a nearly empty club 5 minutes after it opened… and stayed until after 2 a.m.
I kid you not, the senior citizens of the group made my 22- and 24-year-old brothers and me look like chumps. They danced on the dance floor, they danced on the tables, the birthday boy even danced a little bit on the waitress who brought him bottles with sparklers coming out of them. Meanwhile, I kept asking myself when these oldies would finally quit it so I could go home and to bed, because I had a train back to providence and a ton of work the next morning! That evening got me thinking that maybe being a senior citizen isn’t as bad as I imagined it to be. It might even be better than being a sophomore in college…
In order to investigate this new theory, I decided to virtually shadow my grandmother (who’s in her 80s) for a day. Turns out Granny* has it MADE.
I asked Granny to walk me through a typical day from the past week or so. She starts by telling me that the week wasn’t quite typical because she had been out of town, so I tell her to start with her flight back…
Senior Citizen: Granny tells me that she doesn’t mind flying anymore because, due to her elderly status, she gets first class treatment at all airports. She lets “them” (someone at the airline I presume) know ahead of time that she’s coming, and when she checks in, there’s a wheelchair waiting for her. She’s wheeled past all security lines, and then wheeled right on board with the first boarding group and is deposited at her seat on any given flight. She’s met with the same treatment on the other end.
Sophomore in College: Last Sunday I took two subways, one of which I took in the wrong direction first, to get to Penn station a requisite 30 minutes early. I then stood, neck craned, staring at the departures board waiting for my “gate” to be posted “10-15 minutes before scheduled departure.” It was posted 3 minutes post-“scheduled departure,” at which point I ran to beat the hoards of people at my gate for no apparent reason other than that’s what everyone else was doing. And that’s how I got squished between three not-very-pleasant smelling travelers, my arms contorted every which way, trying to hold on to my bag, my coffee, myself, and my train ticket.
Granny: 1, ME: 0
Senior Citizen: One of the first things Granny does upon returning to town is grocery shopping at Costco. Where Granny lives, she not only has a handicap parking pass that allows her to have premier parking wherever she goes, but she also parks for free, because there aren’t meters for handicap spots in her area. Upon parking at Costco, Granny shops for all her needs from the comfort of a wheelie-cart (What do we call these? Do they have a name? See below…). She tells me that 9 out of 10 times she is offered help carrying her groceries.
Sophomore in College: My grocery-shopping regimen requires that I plan at least a week in advance to go; booking a Zipcar that costs as much as a third of my groceries; usually having it snow, meaning driving .05mph – if at all – to the nearest grocer; and then rushing to get everything on my list (which is usually on my iPhone, which usually has 1%) before my phone dies, Zipcar runs out of time, and/or I am late for a meeting. I also usually get stuck scrambling for time in my hour-long reservation to fill up the Zipcar gas tank, even though the grocery store is not even 2 miles away… This makes my time even sparser and usually ends in having to drop off the Zipcar before taking my groceries inside, and trekking a few blocks with several overstuffed grocery bags that usually rip on me en route (I know that using reusable bags would prevent this problem, but I always forget them at home).
Granny: 2, ME: 0
Senior Citizen: Granny goes home after her shopping and relaxes before heading to the movies most afternoons, either in her elderly community home, where they have their own theater, or in town, where she receives a special rate on tickets due to her age.
Sophomore in College: It’s cold, I can’t navigate RIPTA, and I can’t afford to UBER to the mall to get to the movie theater…
Granny: 3, ME: 0
The icing on the cake…
Senior Citizen: Granny’s had some health concerns in the past and is getting a bit too skinny. Her doctor recently suggested medical marijuana to aid in her weight gaining regime.
Sophomore in College: I go to the gym everyday and don’t get insurance-covered marijuana…
Granny: 10000000, ME: 0
*I don’t actually call this grandmother my granny but our nickname for her doesn’t quite make sense and for her own protection I shall refer to her simply as “Granny.”
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