Meet the Geezers!

(This post is a follow-up to the previous one, "Class Acts".)

Being a loyal patron of the arts, I look forward to any Sunday afternoon when I can make my way downtown and enjoy the offerings of our world-class symphony orchestra. Ah yes – if it were only them, and me, enjoying the riches of Western culture and the genius of the composers to which it has given rise. But no! This cannot be! For, assailing me on every side are the blue-haired hordes of “concert-goers” and “season-ticket holders” known as… (be afraid)… THE GEEZERS! Yes, here they come, spilling out of buses and vans from various “retirement centers” across the region… or tottering across Penn Avenue, having parked their obligatory white Cadillacs… or (for the more daring types) having gotten off the “T” at Wood Street. Now, I am not about to argue that these people do not have an active, or even lively, interest in the classics. At one time they might have been passably courteous concert-goers. But they have descended into that state of near-autism that characterizes so many of our “golden agers”. Can they sit still, and be silent? Not a chance in the world. They obsess… they fidget like toddlers… they whisper and mumble… they rattle programs and rub their leather shoes together… the women fumble in their purses incessantly… they fall asleep and snore… they erupt in coughing fits, apropos of someone in the final stages of tuberculosis (in which case, what on earth are they doing at a concert, rather than being cared for in a sanitorium?). But the worst thing – the maddening thing, destructive to the nervous system as well as to one’s sanity – are those damnable cellophane-wrapped candies that they – in particular, the female of the species – insist on consuming, non-stop, from the first tap of the conductor’s baton to the final round of applause. Yea, ne’er was a more fiendish thing invented in the pits of Hell than these confections, the unwrapping of which will send shock waves of irritating sound throughout an entire concert hall. And consider – at any given time, at least three or four geezers will be unwrapping one of these things. And be assured, they take forever to unwrap – by my estimate, at least two minutes per each. But the offense does not end there, because we then have to be treated to the sound of said unwrapped candy being consumed – which generally means, being bounced off a set of dentures for at least five minutes. Now, if the music score called for an out-of-tune xylophone, it would be one thing. But this is a strictly spontaneous performance, and really does not add one thing to the overall result. So this is what one has to put up with in order to enjoy the fine arts, and I suppose the edifice would crumble if it were not for these people’s subscription checks. It’s enough to drive one back to one’s CD player. And yet, live music is so irreplaceable… perhaps the royalty of old had the right idea. Just you, and the orchestra, and no one else. But my paltry subscription will scarcely support such an extravagance. So I guess I have to put up with the geezers… and yet the question remains, why do they even bother showing up ? ?