Because Balance in Important

You know what I hate? Mean old people. For example--

I just hung up the phone with a lady in the Midwest. We're handling the probate of her first cousin's will. The cousin's lineage worked out so that her first cousins are the people who would have inherited her estate had she not had a will. Therefore, they are all entitled to receive a copy of the petition to probate along with the will.

All I needed this lady to do was sign an acknowledgment that she received a copy of the will and petition. Her signature has to be notarized. She returned the first acknowledgment to me without a notary signature so I re-sent it to her. She just lit me up: I'm 86 years old and I live in the country and I would have to drive into town and pay a notary to sign this for me. Why are you asking an old lady to do that when I'm not going to get one thing from this estate? I don't care what happens!

I explained the reasoning behind the law but told her not to trouble herself. Instead, I told her that our alternative was to have the sheriff serve her with a copy of the petition. I told her we would do that and not to be alarmed if the sheriff appeared at her door. She then scolded me some more and lamented the stupidity of Georgia law. I told her I would be glad to let my congressman know that an 86 year old lady in Illinois thinks that Georgia law is stupid, but I was still charged with following it to the letter. She just continued to tell me she didn't care so I thanked her for her help and hung up.

[Our receptionist just came up to apologize for not being able to understand the lady when she told her her name. I told her I couldn't understand her either and our receptionist said, "Well, you were sweet to her." Glad to know I haven't crossed over the line yet.]

Last week, a friend of mine who works in admissions and fundraising for a divinity school was told by an octogenarian that she is a bad mother because is "riding the money train" instead of staying home with her nine-month old. Mind you, the octogenarian has no personal knowledge of my friend's situation. You think she would have said the same thing to my sister--the sole source of support for my nephew?

At what age do people lose the rudeness/judgmental/lack-of-common-human-courtesy filter? I mean, I'm the world's biggest smart-ass and it's well established that I don't suffer fools lightly, but I do generally try to treat people with some modicum of respect. At what age am I allowed to stop? I'm thinking 33.1 months is looking good.