HowTo:Deal With a Cranky Senior Citizen

Because we've all been there at some point.

“I am NOT an octogenarian.”

~ Richard Nixon on his 81st birthday

"Eh? Eh? EH???" Tired of hearing the seniors around you speak like they're Canadian? "Come here Billy and let me pull your cheeks off your face with my untrimmed fingernails" Tired of being grotesquely disfigured by the curiously overanxious hands of your elderly relatives? Well you're in luck because this hands-free handy hand held guide teaches you how to deal with a cranky senior citizen.

Overview

Let's face it, old people suck. They pull their trousers up waay too high, they only give 5 pts when you run them over, and by God, they die every now and again! How irritating! We shouldn't have to put up with the smell of dried urine and cat fur every time we walk down the street - but alas we will have to until euthanasia is legalized. So until that time when the old coots can be rounded up and shoved into the last train to Reno in the sky, we'll have to learn how to Deal With Cranky Senior Citizens.

The problem of dealing with cranky senior citizens will only get worse in the coming decades. Something like 70 million Baby Boomers have started turning 60 just as you were reading this paragraph and you yourself are probably feeling a little tired eh? Well snap out of it! The last thing we need is another wrinkly prune wandering around with dementia. Chances are you will encounter irritable seniors wherever you go. Use this handy list to deal with them:

1. Try to be understanding. Don't worry about this step - we've gone past the realm of understanding. However, senior citizens have plenty to be cranky about; there's the trouble of their pets feasting on their still living flesh as they sleep; there's the drooling and the skid marks, and of course the memory loss. They could walk out onto the road at any second while their children "were busy" planning what they'd spend their inheritance on if granny ever had an "accident" or they could choke on the pillow they were examining in bed, while they were asleep.
2. Keep your cool! There's no reason to act rashly in the heat of the moment! Revenge is a platter best served cold so come back later to get even. There's a number of methods; chopping off the tips of their walking sticks every day, or turning off the air conditioning in their home. So when you pick up the baseball bat, remember beating a nearly dead old horse is not much better than the animals. Be civilizaed - Be evil...
3. Try to be diplomatic. Gently remind the senior citizen that they are not the only one with problems. Make up a story that your grandfather is rotting away in old age home, helpless as a baby. To get on their good side, say you visit your grandfather every day. If this doesn't work, say that you're fighting the urges to smother him in his sleep only by practising on other victims. Get the drift old man?
4. Remind them to count their blessings. Remark on how spry and robust they are - "You can still breath without an iron lung? Wow!" or "You managed to get your pants halfway up! Great job!" Just remember, they're people too... Minus the good parts so they deserve to be punished accordingly.
5. Get them to talk about themselves. Ask them to talk about when they were young "What was it like when they discovered fire? I heard there were some copyright issues..." or what it was like before the technological age - this is a long an tedious subject and will give you just enough time to search their cabinets for the jewellery before they cotton on.

Things to remember

• Be cheerful. Say “Isn’t it a great day to be alive!?” Try calling them "honey" and "dear." It might get them to lower their guard.
• Try telling a joke. Subscribe to a joke-a-day website. See if the old grouch responds to a cute off-color joke.
• Offer them coffee and a doughnut. They might go for a treat that their doctor has said to never eat again.
• Try to get them to talk about their kids and grandkids. The probably seldom see their family, but they may welcome the chance to show wallet pictures.
• Try a compliment. Say something nice about their hair, their pretty eyes, their warm smile. Tell them it's a pleasure to deal with someone so patient and understanding.
• If the senior citizen carries a cane or walker that can be used as a weapon, be wary if you have to turn your back.

Step One: Understanding

The first very important step to defeating any enemy, as nobody who really matters will tell you, is to thoroughly study the tactics and plans of the enemy you are trying to defeat. Normally this may seem to be good advice that one should take under one's careful consideration. However, consider this particular foe of horrid piles of wrinkled skin that is the elderly. You want to stay as far away from that as superhumanly possible so as not to catch a dreadful irritating 20-25 minute task of helping the "senior citizen" make poopy in the potty.

Such a chore will most likely cause excessive vomiting before your eyes explode from your head leaving yet another mushy mess for you to clean up in place of the illegal hispanic housekeeper who convieniently forgot to mention that she was being deported yesterday. So in order to save quite a bit of hassle it is very important that this step be totally omitted and utterly skipped.

Step Two: Planning

Before you plan you must decide what the overall goal you'd like to achieve is. Do you want to annoy the old people? Do you simply want them to go away? There is a very simple way to achieve each end.

Option One: Annoying

It is very simple to annoy any elderly citizen and can be done in a large variety of way depending on their disability. For example, is they have Alzheimer's a simple strategy is to change the placement of things in their house nearly every day. If their specific disease is unknown to you a very simple tactic is also to place everything they use on a tall bookcase or shelf making them very difficult to reach. If they are a neighbor who wants you to stop doing something legal and routine or normal and natural (like taking a shortcut through their lawn or barking at their dog who started the bark-fest), ask for periodic payments to stop doing it. If they are stingy, they will be annoyed. If they are generous enough, you may make some spare change. Just don't try this if the senior citizen happens to be your boss or your boss' friend or immediate family, and make sure it is of a nature that any "emotional distress" damages or property damages would be dismissed in court as frivolous. .

Option Two: Disappearing

The easiest and most popular method of making that cranky senior citizen in your life disappear is to send them to a nursing home, the quality of which is determined by your love for them, though if you loved them you wouldn't be sending them away now would you. Considering this there are several "homes" that take care of the elderly for no more than $10 a day a small price to pay to have some peace and quiet.

Failing this, simply excuse yourself to use the restroom, then lock the door and enjoy the silence, or your phone. Don't respond to any noise ou8side the door. Let them talk to the door instead of the hand. Any shouting outside the door will subside after 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the volume. Or they may simply forget that the door is not a wall. Just make sure this is not the only nearby bathroom, or they will soon be knocking AND shouting, possibly followed by the arrival of a locksmith or skilled lock picker. Trust me, you don't want to be caught with pants down by a lock picker, who is likely of the opposite sex.

Option Three: Nodding and Mumbling and Nodding off

If you happen to be a Senior citizen yourself, are seated and holding an infant, or have already lived through your mid-life crisis, this is a simple way of dealing with the issue, At this point you no longer expect to be constantly entertained, and could use a few extra Zzz's So when they are rambling, simply nod and say something like "uh-huh", "right" or "okay" They will appreciate that you are agreeing with them on everything, and not even notice you are tuning them out. If they seem annoyed that you aren't speaking loudly enough, clean out a bit of earwax with your finger (have a tissue nearby) and look puzzled. (If you are lucky, this will remind them to turn up the volume on their hearing aid.)

Once they start into a monologue, you will gradually find yourself with the urge to play with your phone. Resist the urge: Few things make a senior citizen crankier than playing with your phone instead of listening when they are talking to you: this would make it TOO obvious you are tuning them out.. In time, you will start feeling bored, then sleepy. Give in to the urge to nap, Bonus: it will make up for staying up late, waking up in the middle of the night, or getting up early. This works best on strangers and acquaintances, or friends who don't see you more than once a month. .

Step Three: Keeping Them Annoyed/Away

Now that you have successfully taken your revenge on the cranky senior citizen that wakes you up coughing at 3am, you need to keep them that way, keep them complacent. Just repeat whatever you did during step two every five minutes for about an hour until they fall asleep or go home.

See also

• HowTo:Become an Old Age Pensioner