Taming the Termagants

IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT BEING OLD and infirm that makes people,mean, rude, inconsiderate, irascible, angry? There must be. How could there not be? I have noticed that my former high school friends, the ones who have been mad at me for several years, share two things in common; they voted for Trump, and they all have serious health issues. i voted for Hillary, having supported Bernie, and I am fit well, and happy, knowing that the Trump voters will see their day of reckoning, soon. Research, however, indicates that as people age, they become "nicer". It makes sense. All of the teenage social angst is long gone, and the arrogance of early, successful honeymoon marriage, the world is my oyster adulthood has mellowed into a calm acceptance of one's limitations and unimportance. A poet friend of mine once said something to the effect that if I happened to feel depression or anxiety, remember my unimportance. Oh, how true. Whatever I do, I ought not make too much of it, because nobody else cares, and in a hundred years, nobody will know the difference. At my local small southern town senior center, which tells you a lot, I stand daily at the window dispensing lunch trays and styrofoam cups of mile, rapidly, smilingly. The line is long, and the elderly are famished, impatient, with low blood sugar, even among the diabetics. Many are cheerfully eager, and a few even say "thank you" when they pick up their blue tray replete with nourishing, delicious fare. Most of them, however, don't. Among those who don't express any appreciation for a well prepared free meal are the fab four, as I call them; two termagants, and two crusty old geezers all of whom have despised me from the moment I walked into the place, wearing my rolling Stones T shirt and New York Yankee necklace, all those three years ago. Maybe it was my Hillary Clinton campaign button. Maybe the "stand up for science" bumper sticker. maybe it became known that I am not only a democrat, but also a liberal, a socialist, and a person who has no religions, due to a dislike for religion in general. I have grown tired of walking around the room serving them coffee, smiling, addressing them as "ma'am" and "sir", trying to win them over. I'm done with it. if I can tolerate their fundamentalist Christian lunacy, and their right wing evil, surely they can tolerate what they mistakenly perceive as my misguidedness. I have even begun saying "thank you" for them, when I hand them their lunches. That shames a few of them, for a day or two, into actually feigning courtesy, but within a day or two, they are back to normal, curmudgeonly. now that I have my "Unfit to serve: Impeach Trump" bumper sticker proudly if riskily displayed, our cold war till probably turn into all out shooting war, since I must them them to staunchly defend their fellow republican and Christian Donald J. Trump. I'll keep wondering what it is about Trump which so attracts them, reminds them of Jesus, and causes them to welcome him into their Christian fellowship; is it the billion of dollars, the slanderous hateful vicious comments, the women, or the lies?