I was in the supermarket the other day, struggling a bit, it has to be said, as I have a pregnancy complication that has affected my mobility and causes me a lot of pain. I was forced to stand in the queue at the till while an apparently able bodied woman, probably in her early 70s, made a big fuss about getting her bags packed and her shopping lifted into the trolley, even though I had just seen her by the recycling hoiking great amounts of stuff out of her car boot perfectly happily, like any other normal person.
By the time I got to pay I had been forced to wait 20 minutes in the queue along with everyone else, while she frankly made a huge fuss over a relatively small amount of shopping, with two supermarket employees pandering to her every whim at our expense.
My uncharitable muttering along the lines of "Don't mind me, I'll just stand here and give birth quietly while you finish fussing" was (unsurprisingly) ignored. But I started to feel very irritated by the sheer number of people in this age bracket that do things like fling car doors open to hit me as I walk down the pavement, insist on VIP treatment in supermarkets at the expense of everyone else, and generally try to cash in on their age when they're perfectly fit and healthy really. I've got plenty of older relatives who would not dream of carrying on like this, and I am wondering whether we should all be putting up with it or not.