Old People: Die or Get Out of My Way

I would like to address a seriously increasingly annoying problem: old people not knowing when it's just time to give up. You know what I'm talking about. You hit subway, and you're on a mission. You gotta hop that 6 train downtown and you gotta hop it ASAP. You've ducking and weaving through Grand Central, you hit the initial stairwell to get down into the subway mix. Dime to the left, but no time to stop and shoot a prize winning smile, you gotta go hit 'way. You make it to the turnstile where some asshole to your right is trying to swipe his broke-ass card, "INSUFFICIENT FARE," but you're on point, you got the monthly pass. Card in hand, you give a swipe and the greenish glow appears that says "GO." Oblivious card swipers are annoying.

You're cruising while that asshole to your right keeps swiping. You cut left, dodge right, and there it is in front of you, the stairwell to the platform. Fifteen steps to your goal. You're in the home stretch, and boom, there she is. Some ninety year old woman is holding up traffic, one step at a time. There she goes, back hunched, holding the rail with the left hand, cane in the right hand, one fucking step at a time. You can't get around her, because she has an enormous plaid bag jutting out to the right. Geez lady, what do you have in there, buttons? Moth balls? Oh I know, it's sweaters you knit for your entire extended family for Christmas of '09? Lady, what are you trying to prove? There's an elevator twenty paces from the stairwell, why put your ninety year old frame through the stress of activity you could barely even handle ten years before?

Only seven and a half more steps, halfway through the last leg, and here it comes, 6 train. People start pouring out and this crazy old bag lady freezes up like an Alaskan King Crab during tax season. While she stand there in wide eyed terror, you mutter to yourself come on Magnus, you're almost there, meanwhile the masses known as "strap hangers" (Ugh, AMNY, you are such an annoying paper for coining that term) pour out, bumping Magnus against the rail, terrorizing the right side of the stairwell. The ding goes off the door closes, and you missed your train. Missing your train is annoying, but missing your train due to an old woman on the last thread of her life, despicably annoying.

Don't get me wrong, I like some old people. My grandpa is great! He's old, but he's great, and you know why? He doesn't try to walk in New York City.