Recently my city has been embracing Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Korean restaurants and shops. Much to my delight. Our favorite is a udon place where you order your base first from a person at the front then take your bowl past the tempura and toppings add-ons until you have it how you like it.
The place is super popular and usually there’s a long line out front. Enter Confused Boomer Couple! The wife is blocking the line to get to the bowl station, sort of just meandering, but not getting out of anyone’s way. There’s signs everywhere for people who have never eaten anything but burgers and pizza, but she hasn’t bothered to do so and is just … waiting for … I dunno, a hostess?!
Meanwhile Boomer man is hovering and leaning into the tempura add-on section - close enough to set his hair on fire, yelling : What is this?! What is that?! Why?! I guess expecting the croquettes to reply?! I had to pick up my tray and maneuver around him several times to get some shrimp. What is ALL THAT?! He yells at my kitsune udon. My udon was not amused.
Bro, there’s a dozen signs explaining the very simple steps involved in big bold Boomer English! There’s a taco place across the street if it’s not too foreign for you. WTF!
Tacos are also too foreign for them unless they are Taco Bell.
Once I took my in laws to a very nice Mexican restaurant and they were confused when their burritos arrived and were not wrapped in paper.
My dad mentioned Taco Bell in the same sentence that inferred all the Mexicans work there... 🤣
Probably one of the few spots where they dont
My mother in law had her first taco when she was 64. She hated it and they weren't even spicy (who hates tacos???). Their kind neighbors, originally from Mexico, made a big batch of homemade tamales, wrapped in corn husks. We got a few, too, and they were phenomenal. MIL tells the neighbors she didn't like them, too crunchy.
Yes, she left the husks on, and when told to remove the husks, she refused to try it again.
I'm dying of laughter at this story 😂
My family makes tamales every Christmas, so naturally I grew up eating them. I thought it was common knowledge that you remove the hojas, but I've read multiple stories of people who tried one for the first time and didn't know!
Who makes it to 64 without trying a taco? Had she tried a tortilla before?
The first time I ate a tamale I was in my mid 20s (~20 years ago) Knew nothing about them aside from them being referenced in media. I was living in Michigan at the time so not exactly a hotbed of mexican and texmex food.
Plate came out, I cut off a piece and took a bite. Heard laughing coming from the kitchen. Didn't take much to figure out that was not the right way to eat them.
My date mocked me for weeks over that.
Oh no! You got a good story out of it
Nope, no tortillas. It's funny, because she has lived in a large city her whole life, but has only been to and handful of places in this city, and never ventures out of her neighborhood. I come from a small town and have had waaay more cultural exposure than she has, it's odd.
My own mother tried to eat a husk-wrapped tamale. Complained it was “hard to chew”
What? I know you're not kidding but damn.
“My udon was not amused.” 🤣😂😆😅😁🤣
I must confess. I read the title four or five times. I was picturing some old man yelling at packages of noodles in a grocery store.
My udon did nothing to him!
But you were in possession of suspicious udon.
was a bit slimy-looking...
It's very "old man yells at cloud"
I can literally imagine my mother doing this. Stopping in the middle of the restaurant like she does footpaths. They get inside. Stop. Get outside. Stop. I’d have been in big trouble had I done that shit as a kid.
My dad, grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing me forward, “Go! Get out of the way!”
It's just mind blowing how boomers have absolutely zero tolerance for behaviors in children that the boomer engages in daily as an adult
They can't see that it's the same. It's the entitlement.
I'm currently in Las Vegas and the number of people who lack situational/personal awareness is very concerning.
So many people have walked right into me because they don't look where they are going. They are always SHOCKED because they are so busy with their phones or yelling at their kids that they are completely unaware that other people exist.
Good thing for them that I don't walk carrying hot coffee ☕.
My mom does this. She is so inside her own head. She literally forgets that other people have to react to her existence, and is sometimes surprised that other people have feelings that don't fit into the narrative that she has constructed. On my parents' last anniversary, we went to dinner at her favorite restaurant. We walked through the double doors, and she immediately stopped, making the small crowd behind her almost crash into her and awkwardly go around her to come inside. I know that while she would see that behavior in others as rude and inconsiderate, she would never even process herself as doing it.
She will say, "I don't know why" when talking about someone's motivations, and in her next sentence, will completely make up a motivation that only makes sense to her in the narrative that exists only in her head.
"I don't know why they do this thing that I also do"
My dad went from leaving me in the dust to just stopping right in the way. And heaven forbid I ask him to move
Haha my mother got off a train and I was walking behind her, she stopped abruptly and seemed surprised and asked me why I walked into her. I had no choice as she stopped in the doorway!
A lot of this gets blamed on their age, but it really isn't that, at least not entirely.
I'm 63. I've made a point of learning and trying new things my entire life. To the point where my husband called me "adventure girl " when we were first dating.
He'd gotten some experience in due to his time in the military, but his siblings apparently lived under a rock, and boy did it show. As they aged into full boomer glory, they had decades of experience at rejecting anyone and anything that they weren't familiar with from childhood. You'd never get them in the door of a (insert racist slur here) place like that, and they would certainly never eat any of that weird stuff.
Dad was career navy. He served from WWII to 1965. My brother and I were exposed to a wide variety of Eastern and Southeastern Asian cuisines. My mother however thought ketchup was too spicy and used basil when she was feeling exotic.
I think it’s a fear of the “unknown”. Not a bad person but society moving faster in all facets. I’m 66. I’m not afraid to ask questions or say “ I don’t know”. Some are just prideful or emberassed .
It absolutely is. They've spent their entire lives shying away from anything unfamiliar, so they have no idea how to cope with new things. And at this point, the whole world is new.
"Why can't the TV dinners still come in the aluminum trays?!?"
Considering how many boomer men would starve to death if somebody didn't feed them. . .
Shout out to my husband, who can actually make food and go shopping!
Ain't that the fucking truth. When my mom died I inherited my boomer dad. The son of a bitch WILL NOT EAT unless you plate it and serve it to him.
If you don't? Even if it's all plates up in the fridge, he won't get off his ass to warm up a plate. He'll let it sit there till it rots and they cry to his older sisters "I haven't eaten in 5 days."
sounds like an ex of mine. too stupid/lazy to make himself a sandwich. weaponized incompetence. "but i don't make it as good as you do".
i left. now i went r/4bmovement for a reason. not all boomers are fools or were born with advantages. there are 2 sets of boomers.
Worst part is, is he's actually disabled. Damage from a broken neck. His dominant hand doesn't work anymore. But then you add in the fact that he just doesn't give a fuck. He fucks shit up constantly, misses important appointments, sleeps entire days away. But somehow gets his 21 hours of Alien/Bigfoot bullshit in.
Fuck, if he has something to do at 9:00 pm, you' gotta start fucking diggin in on him at like 7:00 am because it takes him 11 hours to put a fucking sock on.
He's the utter master of what I call "Fumble-fucking". You literally cannot get him out the fucking door without him trying to do 15 other fucking things, dropping shit all over the place, just wandering around.
The other day, family plans to go out to eat. I start at noon, gotta get ready. By 6 he's still only got one sock on. Finally get him ready by 8. It took him from 8:00 pm until 8:40 pm to get 5 feet across the living room. Suddenly, he's gotta shut the computer off, wait, where is the mouse? No, not gonna do that, gonna turn on something for the dogs. Can't find it, 20 minutes of searching his youtube lists. Needs a pepsi (to ride in the fucking car). Can't find his hat.
By the time we got out the fucking door and two the place, they closed in an hour, the rest of the family had eaten and left, and he pouted like a little bitch all night.
"Oh, nobody likes me. Nobody loves me."
And don't even get me started on when he goes "Nope. Not gonna bathe anymore unless someone does it for me." He was literally thrown out of 2 doctors appointments with nurses shouting "We told you to fucking SHOWER JOE!" and him pouting like a little child and then STILL NOT DOING IT! Because "Nobody tells me what to do."
Sigh.
Sorry. He's like a human stress generating machine for everyone who isn't him.
One of many reasons why I divorced my first husband. He kept trying to play helpless & get me to wait on him. And would then complain when I didn't buy in.
His initial attempt to "get me trained" involved him sitting at the kitchen table, with his chair pushed back to block the path to the refrigerator, asking me to get him another glass of tea. With an attitude like he shouldn't have needed to ask.
He didn't take it well when I pointed out that he didn't even need to get up to reach the pitcher himself, but that he would need to move for me to get it.
No idea where this came from either, his dad sure didn't act like that, and he hadn't either, up to that point.
He'd also do charming stunts like empty a drawer full of clothes onto the floor, because I shouldn't have put the shirt he wanted on the bottom.
"The whole world is new". This is such a nugget of truth. Take my upvote and x1000!
Be real: much of it is “Since I don’t know, then you shouldn’t either”.
"How dare you know this thing I don't"
My mom would scream at me and my siblings if we answered any question with "I don't know". She said it made us sound unintelligent.
I asked her what she wanted us to say and it was a combo of lie/ "let me ask source of info". It was ridiculous and exhausting. Especially when it was something she didn't know the answer to either.
My husband's family just tries to bluff their way through.
Early on, I had some serious retraining to get him to be comfortable with "going to need to research that" as a valid answer.
This is my boomer father. To the point of anger. After a frustrating tirade from him a couple of years ago I said, “You know, we’ve learned a lot since you were in grade school.” He just answered with a testy, “I know that!”
It's fear of the unknown
So tired of the pick-me boomers in this sub. We get you're "not like other boomers"
I think I'll cook pasta and yell at it, that actually sounds a little therapeutic.
Quiver before me noodles!
The absence of a comma in your last sentence just made me picture a pirate yelling that instead of "shiver me timbers!" 😂
Yes! That's how I said it in my head!
Sheetcaking sounds more fun but yelling at noodles is probably cheaper and less taxing on the body.
I've thought of that rant often over the years. Just dip a grilled cheese right into the cake.
Tina Fey is a special kind of hero.
God forbid they just stand back and watch for a few minutes to see how everyone else gets their food.
You know they’re going off about how these “oRiEnTaLs” are supposed to serve them.
Eeewww
I don't think there was a single Asian behind the counter that day. It's a chain Udon place. Like McDonalds but edible.
I want to go to a build your own udon place
Same! This place sounds like a piece of heaven!
Marugame Udon? I love that place.
Nailed it!
I hope there was no boomer halitosis special extra saliva spray involved..
No sneeze guard can stop him!
SnEeZe guARdS aRe aN InfRiNgeMEnT oN mUh FREEDOM! tHeY'Re uSeLeSs, toO, eVeN AsK RFKjr!
Boomers can’t read? Or can’t be bothered to
Can’t be bothered. If they talk loud enough someone that works there will help them!
They had to push past about seven signs of HOW TO to get stuck where they were.
Functional illiteracy and entitlement are an unpleasant mix
They need to pull themselves up by the udon noodles! 🍜
Deep fried shrimp and vegetables are foreign to them? 😆😊
YES
Lol!
They don't know how to go into something "new" and observe. Watch and figure it out. They just barge in and make a scene because it's all so "foreign".
They're the "ugly Americans" traveling abroad
Exactly. They expect Walmarts and Red Robins when they get of their cruise ship in Croatia.
These are the people who think Golden Corral is a Michelin star fine dining restaurant.
A former co-worker of mine married a woman from Honduras. He was meeting his dad for lunch. They ended up at Taco Bell. His dad said how lucky he was that he got to "eat like this every night". He was like, 'we had hot dogs last night'.
I would upvote, but it's at 420 and I can't mess with that.
I hope you are a professional humorist.
Ugh, now I want udon AND some pad thai!!!