The Old Man and the Cane

On my way to work, one of the roads that I take at the very beginning of the commute slices between a large Catholic church and the parking lot that serves that church. On Sundays, this road and the foot and car traffic it produces are incredibly annoying, and it also produces some pains on weekdays. Just think about the demographic that has the desire and the capability to attend weekday morning mass (i.e. old people) and you can image tons of cute but geriatric individuals slowly teetering and tottering across the road.

Today was no different, and as I took the turn to go down this road, my view was a little bit obstructed by a parked SUV. By the time I got past the SUV, I noticed that there was one old fella waiting for me to pass before crossing the road for church. Since I was only about 5 feet from his location and it would have taken him between 20-30 minutes to cross the road, I decided to proceed without first coming to a complete stop to first let him cross. In retrospect, this probably would have been the best and most polite solution, but for whatever reason, I did not want to wait until my next birthday to proceed. As I passed by him, he raised his cane perpendicular to the ground, and shook it at me. Yes, I was cane-shooked-at. It is difficult to encapsulate the entirety of the hilariousness of this situation without the visual, but imagine any elderly person shaking his cane at you, and try not to laugh because of the perfection of the cartoonish stereotype alone. The only thing that could have made this more perfect is if he was rushing home to take out his dentures and watch Matlock.

If this old man is familiar with the internet and has somehow found his way to this blog, I want to apologize for not stopping for you this morning. Your cane-shake made me feel both guilty and giddy, and I want to thank you for starting my day off on the right foot. Shake on.