Baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, make up about a quarter of the U.S. population. Referred to simply as ‘boomers’ online, they’ve been the dominant demographic group for the last few decades, and some people feel they've left behind a number of problems for younger generations to deal with.
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Coming from a different time, some boomers have been known to adopt quite the attitude of entitlement. For Reddit user u/Great-Tie-1573, this became suddenly apparent when one elderly lady got verbally abusive and physical with her at an upscale pharmacy. That’s when the pensioner got a rude awakening.
More info: Reddit
Elderly lady shoved past another client in pharmacy only to throw her phone at the pharmacist, all while making demands
Image credits: Tbel Abuseridze (not the actual photo)
The woman asked for some personal space and privacy, but the aged woman swore at her
Image credits: Anna Shvets (not the actual photo)
The poster is small, but by no means sweet or nice, so she let the aged lady have it
Image credits: u/Great-Tie-1573
After causing such a scene, the pensioner was removed from the pharmacy and banned for life
Drama unfolded in the queue at an upscale pharmacy when a woman was trying to pay for her medication, only to be assaulted and insulted by a pushy pensioner. In OP’s post, she says she was picking up her medications at her local pharmacy. She was pulling her card out to pay and the tech was informing her of the medications dispensed, as well as indications.
The next moment, a boomer lady with smeared lipstick, armed with a mobile phone on speaker, physically shoved the woman aside, then proceeded to throw her phone at the tech while yelling, “Talk to them. I said talk to them NOW”. Feeling sorry for the flustered young pharmacist, the woman politely asked the boomer to give her some space so she could finish her transaction. The pensioner responded by telling her that she wouldn’t.
In an effort to be clearer and a touch more assertive, the woman let the pensioner know that her medications were private and that she needed the pensioner to back up away from her. That’s when things really kicked off, because the pensioner responded by saying, “Oh shut up you [jerk]!”.
OP tells us that, while she may be slight, she isn’t necessarily nice or sweet, having come from a less-than-high-income neighborhood. Without skipping a beat, she let loose with a double rainbow of colorful language that had the old woman literally clutching at her pearls and, ultimately, left speechless.
The author of the post shared on r/BoomersBeingFools went on to say that the pharmacy manager subsequently found her in the store and let her know that the offending boomer had been removed from the premises and banned from filling medications there for life. OP called it a small justice.
Image credits: National Cancer Institute (not the actual photo)
Being insulted by anyone, let alone a pensioner with entitlement issues, is never nice, but let’s back up to the shoving. According to the Shouse Law Group, many states say that assault is an act just short of making actual physical contact with someone. You commit the crime by merely doing something that causes a person to reasonably fear an attack or physical harm.
They go on to add that, in these states, pushing someone would be classified as a battery as opposed to the crime of assault. In other states, however, assault involves the actual touching of a person with the intent to injure or provoke the person. These states would say that pushing someone is an assault. So, depending on where this incident took place, OP could well be within her rights to press charges against the elderly offender.
Now let’s turn to the sheer audacity of the pensioner’s actions. In his culture piece for Vox entitled, “How the baby boomers - not millennials - screwed America”, writer and host of The Gray Area podcast Sean Illing writes that everyone likes to bash millennials for being spoiled, entitled, and hopelessly glued to our smartphones. We demand participation trophies, can’t find jobs, and live with our parents until we’re 30.
“But is the millennial hate justified? Have we dropped the generational baton, or was it a previous generation, the so-called baby boomers, who actually ruined everything?" Illing asks.
In his 2017 book, author Bruce Gibney argues that boomers have committed “generational plunder”, pillaging the nation’s economy, repeatedly cutting their own taxes, financing two wars with deficits, ignoring climate change, presiding over the death of America’s manufacturing core, and leaving future generations to clean up the mess they created.
Amongst other pressing anxieties, Gibney perceives an economy imperiled by sinking entitlements, an increasingly un-scientific view of our ecology, and a destructive romance with debt as the hallmarks of the boomer era.
In an article for Men’s Journal, Timothy Bracy writes that the consolidation of boomer agency over government and industry has correlated directly with the decline of American prosperity. With these accusations hanging around their necks, you’d think that a particular breed of boomer might carry themselves with a little more humility.
On the popular social publishing platform Medium, author Mary Anne Hahn asks the question, “Is it fair to call baby boomers entitled?”. Hahn, a boomer herself, writes “To me, entitlement means people feeling that they have a right to whatever they want without having to work for it. Like many boomers, I started working in my teens for my own money and worked an additional 50 years before I retired. I feel I have earned anything I do or buy now.” That being said, we still believe the old woman in OP's story was out of line, no matter how hard she's worked in her lifetime.
What do you think of the fracas in the pharmacy? Have you ever had an unpleasant encounter with an elderly person acting entitled? Let us know in the comments!
The author’s post garnered 17k upvotes within 17 hours and people had plenty to say about boomer attitudes
Image credits: Clean Wal-Mart (not the actual photo)
