r/BoomersBeingFools

I stopped by Goodwill on the way to work this morning and I was there at 9:56. They open at 10:00 am.

There was an older man and woman waiting for the place to open and the man loudly said“ “Four minutes! Four minutes!”.

I didn’t respond verbally, just nodded so he said it again and then “They don’t open for four more minutes.” I really just wanted his loud ass to be quiet so I thanked him.

Then he starts trying to make small talk by looking at my legs and saying “You don’t get out in the sun much, do you?”

I responded that I try to avoid it because it can wreck your skin. Then I noticed his leathery old face that looked like a well worn baseball mitt that had been buried under the porch for a few years.

He started blabbering on about something and then went back to my lack of a sun tan.

I had had enough and told him again that I try to avoid spending too much time in the Sun. I then said I also try to avoid making unsolicited comments about strangers and their appearance.

I guess he got the hint because he looked a little huffy but at least I’d have some peace quiet until the place opened, or so I thought.

He looked past me and loudly yelled “Get out of that tree!”.

I didn’t take the bait. I didn’t look or anything. A couple of minutes later another boomer walked up and the first boomer said “Who were you praying to? The clouds?”

The guy looked confused and explained that he was just smelling the azaleas and now the conversation is about whether azaleas have a smell.

The azalea smelling guy didn’t want to be in this conversation any more than I did so I turned to him and said “You’re out here just trying to smell some flowers and you got some guy who doesn’t even know they have a scent yelling at you about it.”

I was so happy when the doors opened and I could get away from this nut job.

Around a year and a half ago I was at the DMV renewing my license. Long line out the door, snakey doubled-up line inside, you know how it goes. After perhaps 40 minutes or so I'm finally in the home stretch, in that final snake line bend, when a full volume phone is heard blasting... the hardest of porn? We're talking r*** levels of male-on-female dominance here. Heads including my own slowly turn to the source in the neighboring section of snakey line. A potato-shaped fellow about 75-80ish or so looking bored as one does in a DMV, his phone max volume emanating some seriously nasty stuff from his pants pocket.

He looks ahead oblivious. The entire nearby line stares. He doesn't react. Perhaps he's hard of hearing? No one says a thing, because, well, what do you say? "Hey bud, your freaky nasty porn is blaring, do you mind turning it off?" He continues to seem unaware. This goes on, no exaggeration, for 3-4 minutes straight. 3-4 minutes of full blast depravity. Then, finally, he notices. With no ounce of shame and with all the casualness of someone who accidentally sat on the TV remote, he mutes his phone and loudly declares:

"Damned commercials!"

And that's it. He goes back to looking bored in line at the DMV, like he just muted a spam call. The fellow linewaiters and I look at each other incredulously, not willing to bring up the topic. Did that just happen? Was this a shared psychosis of a dream?

I dunno, man. It happened, and it's now forever burned in my brain.

I’m waiting for my girlfriend outside of our local watering hole and some boom is on speakerphone talking about the World Cup LOUDLY while I am sitting here listening to it against my will

This is one story, but something similar happens every week. I ship a lot of stuff. Enough that I go to the post office every day. One afternoon, I go in and the line for the counter is very long. Like to the door, 20 people deep long. I wanted to wait because I had a high value package and I wanted it scanned at the counter so I could get a receipt.

Three spots in front of me is a boomer couple. They are clearly annoyed at how long they have to wait in line. I can't make out everything they are saying, but I catch her saying something about how slow the lazy postal workers are being.

They finally get their turn at the counter. They have two envelopes to mail, but they need stamps. They walked right past the self service machine where they could buy stamps with no line, but whatever. The lady asks for a book of stamps. The postal worker pulls out a book and gets ready to ring her up. She stops him and says "no, I want to see the notebook you have of all of the available stamps so I can pick which one I want.*

I've seen this play out before. Several times in fact. The worker pulls out a three ring binder that has pictures of all of the available stamps in it. Boomer couple spend a solid ten minutes flipping through and discussing the design of each stamp, not an ounce of consideration for the very long line behind them. At one point, the postal worker tells them that they can take the book over to another counter and pick out their stamps, but the lady just says "no, because then we have to wait in line again to buy them". They proceeded to flip through, talking to each other and occasionally asking the postal worker questions thereby reducing our packed post office to a single checkout. And that employee was there primarily to handle passport appointments.

They care so much when they are being inconvenienced, but not one bit when they are inconviencing others.

I was recently in Bali on holidays with my family. I rarely see unsupervised boomers there, they’re usually with multi generational family groups.

I had 3 minor boomer experiences in the week we were there.

First one was when I was going through immigration, they have electronic gates now. The sign says hold your passport on the reader. When you do this the gates open, you step forward onto the footprints, the gates close behind you and the camera takes your photo and matches to your passport and opens the gates in front of you. Simple right. Apparently not. The boomer beside me kept tapping her passport on the scanner so the gates wouldn’t open. So she decided hers must be broken and moved to the gate I was at. Despite the red x on my gate as it was in use, she proceeded to repeatedly tap her passport on the scanner. So now the gates wouldn’t open for me. I had to rescan my passport 4 times because she couldn’t follow instructions, despite several people, including my DIL telling her to wait. So what should have taken a minute turned into more.

Second experience, DIL and I need to withdraw money from an ATM. There are 2 side by side in the car park of a hotel. We have to go through a boom gate to access the ATMs. We decide to use one together as this is DILs first overseas trip and is worried about skimming etc. so I do 2 transactions and then DIL starts her transactions. As I’m fueled by a couple of raspberry vodka’s, and I’m on holiday, I start dancing in the booth. As I’m bopping around in the booth I see a boomer glaring at me so I smiled and waved and kept bopping while waiting. Next minute, the security guard comes and opens the door. He says ‘oh there’s two’ and shuts the door and talks to the boomer. People! He called security because he had to wait for us to finish when he could have used the empty ATM directly beside us! Make it make sense.

Third was at the airport. Line up for the ladies loo, cause there’s always a line for the ladies loo. We all line up on the left so people who’ve been can leave and we can go. So I go do my business and try to leave. The line all shuffle back to the left, except boomer. She watches them but doesn’t move. She then watches me walking towards her, doesn’t move. When I stopped in front of her instead of walking through her she’s smiling at me with a confused look, like she’s wondering why I’m stopped to talk to her. Completely clueless. So I told her ‘no it’s fine, don’t move. Just keep blocking the way so people can’t leave’ I still brushed shoulders with her because she wouldn’t move. I just don’t know what’s wrong with them. Is it the lead in the fuel and the paint? Can they really not follow basic instructions and social cues? We still had the best holiday ever.

This happened last Saturday at a local restaurant. It is set up like a fast food place with free seating, meaning you have to order at the counter and they will bring your order (on a plate, not fast food style) to your chosen table. It was lunch time, so very busy.

Enter 6 male boomers who were apparently on a little road trip, because of the nice weather.

I was waiting behind them in line. They were talking loudly and cracking jokes. When it was their turn to order, they hadn't even glanced at the menu yet. None of them knew what they wanted, so out came the reading glasses and the questions. "What's good here?" "Is this dish served with a salad?" "Can I have my fries on a large plate?" "Where do you keep the napkins (they were right in front of him in a box marked "napkins"). It took forever.

Then they all insisted on ordering and paying separately. However, they also insisted that the 6 different orders had to be served at the same time, because they wanted to eat together as a group...

When they were done ordering, the line was so long people were waiting outside. They were of course completely oblivious and all 6 of them just kind of stood there waiting and inconveniencing everybody, until the staff asked them to please take a seat.

I made sure that I was extra friendly to the poor flustered teenager that had to deal with these boomers.

Sorry for any mistakes or formatting issues. English is not my first language and I'm on mobile.

I (25M) work at a small thrift store in my local area. It's not a major store like Goodwill or Habitat, but it's still fun to work there (sort through merchandise, collect donations, and price new products). Since it's a thrift store, boomers show up all the time. It's not an issue, as some of the workers are retirees, and they do this as a hobby after retirement. I was working the desk when the store officially closed (we close the store at 2pm to let some of the older people leave early and have some of the younger people (like myself) clean up around the store (clean floors, dust fans, and making sure the merchandise isn't out of place), when all of a sudden a boomer couple walks in. Note: There's only two people left, the manager (early 60s) and myself cleaning up. It's 1:55 when they arrived. They asked if we're open and I tell them "yes for another 5 minutes, but we have to close at 2pm to clean up." BIG MISTAKE. They look around, but were still shopping when 2:00 rolls. I ask if they were done, and the husband was like "we're still shopping, give us 5 minutes" meanwhile I'm waiting for them to finish as I still have cleaning to do. My manager steps in and says "It's 2:00, grab your stuff and check out. We have cleaning up to do." The man responds "you can clean up while we shop, it's no big deal." I'm pissed atp, as I'm ready to clean up and my manager has some errands to run afterwards. His wife said "I just need these pairs of jewelry, we can check out now." Husband responds "I don't understand why we have to leave, they're just cleaning. They're lazy and don't want anymore customers passed 2:00." I point at the Sign: OPEN UNTIL 2PM. "See, it's not that we're 'lazy' we have other errands to run later in the day and we need to give us time to clean up." Boomer husband responds "fine, but I'm not coming back." My manager responds "Great, you won't be welcome back after 2pm." He paid for the jewelry and left. Thanks for the comeback, I couldn't have said it better myself!

Had to go to my doctor's office to go over recent test results, nothing too unusual. It's a small waiting room, maybe 12 chairs, and 6 boomer age folks already there having a group conversation.

After the first couple gets called back, it lulls into a nice quiet atmosphere. Until the boomer man on crutches and wheezing breath pulls out his cell and begins scrolling with full speakers through music videos, random reaction clips, and that fake robot AI commentary videos. Normal fair until he starts singing along at full volume to his divorced dad rock like it's karaoke night at the neighborhood drink and drive bar.

The remaining boomer couple then pull out their cell phones and begin to watch/play their own music videos, again at full volume. At least they have better taste and play Selena hits. But by now, the cacophony of sound is migraine inducing. And I seriously regret not making this a phone visit.

Please god make me deaf.

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.

My dad believes in these wild, crypto-tainted financial scams and has wasted thousands of dollars over the past few years. My mom shared an email they received with the following message:

I’m just following up to let you know that your profile clearance has officially come through. Everything is looking good with the World Liberty Exchange migration.
Your Tier 4B status is now active and the allocation of 3,925,500.00 is settled within the Quantum System. It was a straightforward process getting this through.
When you get a chance, please reach out so we can go over the routing details and get the onboarding side of things handled.
Let’s get the onboarding started →
—————————————-
HOW COOKED IS HE?!

What is it with boomers and buying the most random stuff off of Temu for gifts?

My MIL is very boomer adjacent and every Christmas or birthday for my daughter, she buys all this random garbage off of TEMU.

Its just stuff that takes up space. I'd much rather she get one small thing from a reputable retailer.

The whole mentality of quantity of gifts over quality is so ridiculous.

I volunteer at music festivals for free entry (Uk) its usually great and people are nice, boomers are occasional and generally the cool ones, however:

This time Im working accessible transport. Its buggys (like electric golf buggys) which transport people with mobility issues about - its a big site (a mile from the campsites to the main stage). Im running a stop at the camp sites - managing the queues and radioing in requests.

To use the transport you need an accessibility wristband which is pre arrnaged with the festival - they arent open to all - obvious really as there's only so much capacity and this is a 50 thousand odd people event.

This attracted the boomers like flies - a stream of them coming up trying to use the transport:

I need the buggy to move my camping gear - its too heavy.

I need you to take me to my car and back as I left my phone behind

Call a buggy to get my wife she's down there and doesn't want to walk

I have a letter from my doctor (waves paper) saying I can use this transport

They dont look disabled- why should they get to use this?

The security queue is too long - i need to use this buggy instead

Literally one of them what seemed like every 10 minutes for hours on end - walking up in front of a queue of people (some of whom were in wheelchairs) demanding to use a resource which was not for them and then getting pissy when you say no - although one of them did offer me a financial incentive of £5 (not quite enough for a beer at a fesitival) and then stormed off when I declined.

I keep seeing so many boomers type in this weird style of speaking, where they CAPITALIZE random words and use .......excessive!! punctuation.. WHILE combining it with. Incomplete sentences. They do this while typing in ONE! large. Paragraph thats a mile long .......and has like....... 1 million PERIODS and ,,,comas in between all the words. Anytime I TRY to READ anything written by a boomer in. This style of writing. It makes me lose BRAIN cells by each WORD.

Has anyone experienced this also?

I’ve noticed that one of the great Boomer pastimes is making the exact same joke in every comment section. It’s almost always some exhausted, decades-old reference.

Post about a cougar on a hiking trail? “You’ll find cougars at the bar too.” 🤪

Post about a coyote? “Did you see the Road Runner? Beep beep” 🥴

Shark video? “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” 🤤

Every. Single. Time.

These jokes have been beaten into the ground for 30 or 40 years. I wonder if they find it funny or if it just scratches a familiar itch in their brain.

The current edition of the elderly are a menace to society and ruining the planet.

This just happened today. I'm not being facetious and I'm not AI. I'm a normal human being.

I'm on a girl's trip to Florida. We had a long day where we were out doing things and we needed to stop at a local grocery store to get some supplies. Girlfriend (GF) 1 had a list so we dropped her off at the entrance to get her going. I parked the car in a parking spot right next to a handicap space. I took advantage of the situation and went to the liquor store and bought a vodka seltzer. I paid for the seltzer and it went back to the car where GF 2 & 3 were smoking whatever and helping with wardrobe malfunctions.

I was concerned about the big truck that was parked in the handicapped space next to us blocking the view from GF 1 and us, so we piled in the car and I parked in front of the store.

For context: there are multiple concrete yellow barriers in front of the store. I parked as far forward as I could which wouldn't impede foot traffic in and out of the grocery and liquor store area.

I also had my hazard lights on.

We were there 5-7 minutes tops.

Suddenly, here comes a vehicle that parks directly behind my bumper. He honks his horn and waves his hands expecting me to move.

Now, to give some context about me: I'm on vacation, I'm perimenopausal, it's hot, I'm a sailor, and I'm on 20mg of Lexapro. My fucks are non-existent.

I see ol' dude get out of his car and charge-walk towards mine. Don't ask me why I rolled down my window: I'm curious like that........

"You need to move."

"I'm waiting on my friend."

"There are plenty of parking spots here where you can wait for them." (So they Can do the non-binary thing after all!) "You've been here for 15 minutes and you haven't moved." No, I've been here only a few.

Friends and fellow caustic readers, I couldn't help myself as I have no filter, I reply in the most nasally, passive-aggressive voice, "But there's so many other spots where YOU can park tooooo..."

He starts to reply but I'm not doing that so I roll up my window and put my arm in the way of us.

Coincidentally, GF 1 comes out right at that time to load the supplies into my awaiting trunk. Ol' dude mutters sheit back to his car and proceeds to drive.. Out of the parking lot!!!

What the actual grumpy old man fuck?! Why you mad we're sitting there minding our own business, not hurting anyone or anything? Why you so mad in general???

Anyway, trip not "ruined" or anything dramatic like that. Just annoying. So. Fucking. Annoying.

Live dangerously, y'all.

It truly blows my mind how common this is with them and how widely acknowledged it is by younger generations. Boomers will be blatantly wrong and when you point out how they’re wrong with logic, they retort to some form of dismissing you based on your age with a “listen youngin, just trust me bro I’m older.”

I see it on Reddit and Facebook constantly. I’m in groups for my various hobbies, I see a boomer say something blatantly wrong, I nicely correct them, I get a bunch of thumbs up reacts while they get a bunch of laughing reacts, multiple people chime in to tell the boomer they’re wrong as well, they still don’t get it and just resort to making such an illogical point and then call me “youngin”. It’s as if the ability to recognize they’re wrong and learn when corrected doesn’t exist in that generation. They just dismiss and resort to “age= unobjectionable knowledge.”

I’d love to hear theories on why this generation is so predisposed to this.

My father...80 yrs old...on the cusp of Silent Gen and Boomer...has suddenly become obsessed with an idea that everyone is on drugs or alcohol...just noe he said, "I'm glad your son knows tge value of hard work. Kids today just work enough to get money for their drugs and alcohol." Which is the 6th time he has mentioned people being on those things in the past 3 days...