You Cannot Mind Your Manners

So, I’m riding on the Tri-Met, I am seated, and it is pretty full. There is nobody sitting next to me.

The train stops. A couple walks in, presumably married. They’re older, but I would not say they’re elderly — the man’s hair is graying, the woman’s hair is gray. I’d estimate they’re in their late 50s. I don’t really think twice about it, and continue to sit.

Until the man points to her to the seat next to me — she looks a little tired. The man continues to stand, a good number of yards away — enough yards that to have a coherent conversation with her, it would entail a bit of yelling. So, I stand up, and give up my seat.

The man is slightly apoplectic, and waves his hand a bit. “No. No. No. That’s okay. That’s okay.” Then he grumbles and takes the seat, and says to a couple across the aisle from where I was and he is now, “Boy, this makes me feel terrible.”

I sigh, and listen in to the ensuing conversation about the perils of aging, and feel a little aggrivated because I’m now cast as an insensitive whipper-snapper that lumps everyone over 40 into a wide net of OLD, and I know I cannot say a word about how I stood up to let a couple sit together.

Now that I think about it I’d have done the same for 30-somethings and teenagers, but for some odd reason not for twenty-somethings — unless maybe explicitly asked, which is a little odd.

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