I’m sitting on a conference shuttle packed with tired professionals on the last day of a long annual conference. Boomer across the aisle from me has headphones (wired) in her hand, and a ballgame playing on speaker on her phone. She is actively clucking and looking around accusingly while turning it up to drown out the conversations around her.
I can’t with these people.
Recently my son, his other mom and I booked tickets for the Verde Canyon Railway (Arizona). It’s a nice trip through the canyon, beautiful scenery, and since my son and I love trains, it was a fun way to celebrate his birthday.
We got to the station early, did some milling around, had lunch at the cafe, all the usual things. We get in line to board behind a nice boomer couple, and more people line up behind us, also mostly boomers. It’s a train ride. Very much a boomer thing.
A large tour group of boomers is lined up to the side- they had an entire car reserved, so they were not in the “regular” line. Boarding starts, and the conductor speaks to the group and lets them know that he’s going to load “these folks” - regular line - and then process their tickets altogether for efficiency. Much nodding. Reasonable.
Couple ahead of us starts to board and a single boomer from the group rushes up and tries to push ahead of them. Conductor is patient and explains that he’ll be right with the group, but he’s boarding these folks first. Boomer backs off, frowning. Couple boards. Conductor takes my ticket and boomer thrusts his arm in front of me, blocking me from moving, and waves his ticket at the conductor.
The conductor calmly asks him to move his arm and allow me to board. He explains for a third time the boarding process. Boomer drops his arm. I board. Boomer’s arm pops right back up in front of my son. Conductor, patiently repeats himself. Boomer drops arm. Son boards. Boomer’s arm pops up yet again, in front of my ex (son’s other mom). Conductor is losing patience. Looks at boomer and loudly, like LOUDLY, reiterates the procedure and tells boomer to GET BACK IN LINE.
I have no idea if he got in line or kept blocking everyone trying to board- but that poor conductor. He probably deals with this nonsense daily.