Senior citizens

A seniors gathering.

Senior Citizens, also called seniors, Old Fogies and Grandma's Parents, now make up the largest population group found in certain areas of the world. They play a dominant role on Golden Girls and have official status as not being second class citizens in Miami, Florida.

Lifestyles

Habitat

Wealthy and healthy seniors tend to congregate in small apartment communities such as Sun City in Las Vegas, Nevada. Each condo is laid out on one floor, equipped with a small kitchen sporting an avocado green refrigerator which "still works, Sonny, and don't you forget it!", a doorbell which is incredibly loud, and which supposedly does not work, and a Clapper which works just enough to be annoying. It turns out thunderstorms, pets jumping off tables, using walkers, and fireworks sound remarkably like clapping, at least to whoever designed the device. This kind of a dwelling generally overlooks a swimming pool which is empty from 10 AM to 4 PM due to the extreme heat of the sun and the chance of contracting some unnamed and undiscovered but highly feared water borne disease. Some of these residences may also contain an electric typewriter and one huge white freezer designed solely for freezing food, and all the shelves are coated in a two inch layer of frost.

The poor ones tend to be in nursing homes or in the home of an ungrateful grandson or granddaughter. They use their government health care or Medicare benefits to pay most of their meds but some always get charged to them in the end. If left to their own devices, they would either watch the Home Shopping Channel or the church channel. Religion seems to be a favorite to them along with griping at that Nostradamus 2012 television show and watching movies that they lose interest in 30 minutes late when the Geritol forgets to kick and they decide to either take a nap or go outside in the bee-infested garden.

Condition

Many Senior Citizens looks like a million dollars---all green and wrinkled. They tend to be cranky. Some of them have been known to break an 18-year-old boy's erect penis (especially the ones that work in high school libraries and confuse penises for loaded weapons.)

Outlook

It is generally agreed that Senior Citizens have in their future only the prospect of getting older, though for some this is not true. (See Death). So, depending on their funds, they create their own future prospects by going on vacation. The location of this vacation depends purely on the senior's income.

• Poverty stricken seniors typically vacation at the local bingo hall or bridge club.
• Seniors of moderate income may be found on vacation picnicking in the park, stretching at yoga studios, rolling gutter-balls at the local bowling alley, waiting in line for tickets at theaters and sports stadiums, or staring at the walls of an inside cabin on a cruise ship.
• Seniors with large savings funds may be found vacationing in fancy hotels, on exclusive golf courses, in private yachts, or in mansions that somebody else cleans up. These seniors are also known as Congress.

Example of an old person.

Activities

Seniors spend 68 percent of each weekday on average making, canceling, or attending doctors appointments. The remainder of the time is spent traveling to or waiting in doctors offices reading the latest issue of AARP Magazine. Upon rare occasions, a senior will attend an event at school with a grandchild at which time the senior will ask the teacher what that TV is doing on the table, and why it has a half a typewriter attached to it with a wire. Stories of long walks to and from school in the snow without shoes, walking up hill both ways will ensue, and then snacks will be served at which point the senior will point out that the doctor said not to eat this.

Benefits and Beliefs

Discounts and Coupons

Seniors are very often entitled to half fare in local museums which no one wants to go into, and can get in free for Ice Skating on Wednesday nights. (These free skating nights for seniors are sponsored by the local osteopathic association). The seniors tend to carry with them a stack of coupons for area restaurants, and will often insist on arriving at a dinner restaurant by 4 PM so they can use a ticket for the early bird meal. At the restaurant they order the most expensive thing on the menu that takes a little time to make, and they bitch when the food gets there and they say, "I order chicken not steak - can't you get anything right?" Since they now have a lot of time on their hands in their retirement, they spend it clipping coupons and searching for discounts, no matter how small. When they were kids, you could buy a gumball from a machine for a penny, so every penny counts.

Beliefs

Virtues

• Seniors believe church is not just a place to go for Christmas, Easter, weddings, or funerals. They believe they accumulate bonus points in the afterlife for each and every service attended.
• Seniors believe stubbornness is a virtue.
• Seniors value uninterrupted face-to-face time with others. Yes, that actually means looking AT their face. This is also why they believe texting should be made illegal in restaurants and meeting places.
• Seniors believe people should talk loudly enough that they can hear them.
• Most seniors do not believe they really need hearing aids.
• Seniors prefer phone calls or emails to texts.
• Seniors believe old age is a "state of mind" and can be avoided.

The Good Old Days

Seniors believe in the good old days. Some Seniors still believe that Lyndon B. Johnson is the legitimate President of the United States. They don't recognize any U.S. president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Senior citizens gripe at anything (especially music) that is done after their 30th birthday (which was a really long time ago). "They just don't make them like they used to" is a common catchphrase.

Technology and The Future

Seniors will (sadly enough) never believe in hovercars, nanobots, or cancer being cured in their lifetime. Seniors often don't believe what they see on television or hear on the radio, but believe everything they see on the internet. They see grocery prices go up long before the 50-year-old unwed mother who has to work in produce in the morning. Seniors don't believe in sales as "bringing down the cost of food" and say that food prices will always go up. They believe that digital antenna television is a cheap excuse for not having satellite television. They believe that satellite television is a great idea in a rainy climate. "You never know" is a catchphrase to them, regardless of their education level. Cancer to them is like getting married is to (us) young people. All of them like NASCAR. Their favorites tend to be Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, or Richard Petty.