So, there was this Boomer who …

[livinitup]

Wednesday’s randoms had a bunch of Boomer gems. So, it might deserve its own post. (No offense to our Boomer posters and all the Boomers we love)

Here’s mine - I just got a text from my dad. He copied and pasted it from another text. He set up an appointment with a contractor that I recommended, so he wanted me to see the details.

Folks, he gave the guy his street address and then included driving directions, too - nearest highway, exit #, street by street turns. I … can’t.

[wanderingback]

Maybe I’m a boomer cause I’ve def given people directions before!

[flygirl]

My aunt used to send me news and magazine clippings which had things about places I talked about visiting. It was cute, but pretty sure I can find that all on the internet.

[wildrice]

My sister and I were laughing about this a few weeks ago. My dad ALWAYS describes how to get places. We're like dad, what's the name of the place? I can just put it in my GPS, I'm never going to remember the 15 steps you verbally provided me!

[dancingirl21]

My 63 year old Dad took his first plane ride last October with my brother to my sister's wedding. Sister has now had a baby and Dad wants to go down there and see his granddaughter. He has never booked a flight before and called me yesterday to tell me he can't see how to book his flight on American Airlines and will I please get on a call with him and help him? Oh the olds (he's not even old!). It's so cute.

[Bad Dingo]

My previous boss used to insist that I'd include driving directions in meeting invitations. This was like 5 years ago, not pre-google or even pre-mapquest.

[mel]

May 4, 2023 12:02:10 GMT -5 wildrice said:

My sister and I were laughing about this a few weeks ago. My dad ALWAYS describes how to get places. We're like dad, what's the name of the place? I can just put it in my GPS, I'm never going to remember the 15 steps you verbally provided me!

This is my husband 100%! He's always explaining how to drive somewhere. I always zone out and put it in my GPS.

If we're riding together somewhere we aren't familiar with, he'll look up directions on the computer. I'll put it in my GPS and if it differs from what he saw on the computer, he starts getting mad at the GPS and says it's wrong. OMG he's a boomer in disguise!

[moreace01]

May 4, 2023 11:58:03 GMT -5 flygirl said:

My aunt used to send me news and magazine clippings which had things about places I talked about visiting. It was cute, but pretty sure I can find that all on the internet.

My dad keeps files for everyone with clippings and hands them off whenever you see him. If you get a file it definitely means you rank high on his list. My SO was excited when he got his first file folder. Lol.

[underwaterrhymes]

This is not a Boomer - it’s my 98-year old grandfather whom I love immensely - but when he first joined Facebook he evidently wanted to see what my younger cousin Noelle was up to, so he posted (as his status) “search for Noelle Moore” and then immediately after “search for Noelle Moore latest messages.” ❤️😂

* name has been changed

[candreco]

Yeah, DH's mom always wants to give us directions, and will pull out her phone to SHOW US IN GOOGLE MAPS as she's doing it, lol.

My dad always start texts to me with "C-" and ends them with "Love, Dad."

My mom has definitely asked me to walk her through some online transactions over the years, even though she absolutely knows how and I'm just there for moral support. She also doesn't really trust online bill-pay, and still pays all of their bills via physical check, including actually going to the bank to pay their mortgage every month.

[jinkies]

I gave you my best QR code material yesterday LOL.

I might have posted this when it happened, but my boomer neighbor responded to a "Happy New Year" message by saying "Thanks! So many weddings this year, and baby's coming".

She has two kids in their mid/late 20s. I knew one was getting married and the other was in a serious relationship, but hadn't heard that either was pregnant. So I responded by congratulating her on becoming a grandparent. Hours later, she responded that it wasn't either of her kids, just a friend of her daughter's. LOL.


My parents have been taking my son out to dinner every month or two, just to hear about his life. My son was just telling me that last time, they went to a newly-opened location of a chain restaurant. DS made a passing comment about wishing there was more sauce on his burger. Apparently my mom made a big deal about calling over the waitress and telling her that she needs to let the cooks know that the burgers need more sauce, and how both DS and my dad had wanted more sauce, like she was doing them some big favor by providing her feedback. DS was mortified, and the waitress was like 16 and I'm sure did not care.

[underwaterrhymes]

Also, my step aunt (the one whose son went back to college to surprise her) does not understand how Facebook works and will respond to posts on her feed like people have sent them to her personally.

Like once I posted during the early days of COVID a list of things that everyone likes that I don’t and she replied, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to reply to things like this.” 😂😂

But it’s not just with people she knows. Hillary Clinton posted something about Amanda Gorman and my aunt went on and on about how she loves her clothes and she wonders if she makes them and about all the quilting she’s doing and fabric sorting and how she should really iron them and so on.

Or when some rando posted a brain teaser with over 700,000 responses and must have tagged one of her friends because amidst all of the responses to the brain teaser was my aunt’s response: “How are you? Well, I hope. Everything’s fine here in (insert home town).” 🤦🏻‍♀️

The funniest part is FB’s algorithm has decided that my sister derives great joy from these posts (she does not) and shares them in her feed constantly, which I find hilarious.

[carmenere]

When I was getting quotes for renovations on our house, one contractor "fired" me for texting him on a Saturday. My text was something like "I just realized I forgot to ask XYZ yesterday, when you have a chance please let me know" - obviously not expecting an immediate response. He sent me a long text about how inappropriate it is to send work texts on the weekend and how dare I and he didn't want to work with us anymore. It took everything in me to not reply "okay boomer".

[lilypad1126]

My dad's nickname for the longest time was "Weatherman Ted" (not his real name). He would text me with weather updates for his location, my location, and random locations he used to travel for work. It got worse with retirement.

Well, now my mom, in her retirement, has taken to texting me about whatever she hears about Texas on the ABC evening news. Storms? Crime? Feel good stories? All of it. But the best part is, 95% of the time, the locations are super far away (like, I live in houston and the bad weather is in Dallas). And she's always like "how's your weather? Don't go outside, there are tornadoes in Texas!" I have to reminder her that Texas is big and I don't live in Dallas, lol.

My grandpa used to give weather updates too. So it's either an "older person" thing or it's just my family, lol.

[mel]

DH's boomer cousin does not how to reply to posts on Facebook. She shares the post and puts her reply there. A few weeks back, I posted something about DH and my anniversary and she shared my post and wrote "Congratulations on 15 years! We're so happy for you!"

[underwaterrhymes]

May 4, 2023 11:58:03 GMT -5 flygirl said:

My aunt used to send me news and magazine clippings which had things about places I talked about visiting. It was cute, but pretty sure I can find that all on the internet.

Aww, this is really sweet.

[VillainV]

My MIL will print news articles off the internet, then put them in an envelope and mail them to us.

[pinkdutchtulips]

Thankfully my Boomer parents are pretty with it. Although my dad's wifi password had to be changed the first time I visited him in OH w a 5yo Miss R. Her first words after walking into his house were 'what's the wifi password?' my dad 'password' ..   seriously dad that ?!? I quickly remedied it. 

J's Boomer dad though only checks his email once a month 

[beerlover]

My mom keeps an ongoing photo album of my child with actual printed photos. She takes it out of his closet every few months, fills it with photos, and puts it back.

[msmerymac]

May 4, 2023 11:58:03 GMT -5 flygirl said:

My aunt used to send me news and magazine clippings which had things about places I talked about visiting. It was cute, but pretty sure I can find that all on the internet.

My dad used to send me newspaper clippings, but now he just sends me dog videos through FB messenger. 

[mrsd2006]

I mean, sometimes extra directions are needed lol.

[NewGirlNic]

My FIL uses talk to text and sends these massive text messages to H, sans any punctuation. He always starts it with "hey H it's Dad"

My grandmother (not a boomer, she's 93) recently got an iphone (she needed a new cell phone and my Mom was getting an iphone and there was a BOGO deal). As if that wasn't hard enough to teach her to use (DS and my niece pretty much taught her to use it), she then wanted a facebook account so she could see pictures and whatnot of all her nieces and nephews and other out of town family. She will randomly repost some weird things. Like one of my friends profile pictures or an old post from 5 years ago. Or update her status to someone's name (I'm assuming she's trying to search for someone when that happens) 

[ECB]

May 4, 2023 12:53:38 GMT -5 VillainV said:

My MIL will print news articles off the internet, then put them in an envelope and mail them to us.

we have a cousin on DHs side that does this. And if we email his wife about coming to visit, HE will then send us a postcard with a reply. 😂😂😂 it’s hysterical and cute.

BUT to his credit, he collects historical postcards from various cities and on various topics and he’ll send us a card from Baltimore, where we live. Weframed a collection of these cards to hang up.

[ECB]

May 4, 2023 13:18:09 GMT -5 mrsd2006 said:

I mean, sometimes extra directions are needed lol.

yes. We’re going to a party in the country this weekend, and a friend gave us a couple extra details that will be helpful and we won’t get via GPS!

[penelope]

My father used GPS one time when we were traveling together on a hockey trip for my boys. Someone at the rink told him about a shortcut to get home. When he turned off the road, Siri was saying, "You are going the wrong way. Please turn around." over and over. He unplugged it and made a comment about how stupid those things are. An hour later we finally hit highway again, we are moving along and I see a sign that says "town you just left - 10 miles". We basically drove around in a circle and came in behind the town we were supposed to be leaving.

[EvieEthelGarland]

I work for a non profit and am the one who processes credit card donations. My MIL wanted to make a donation so I offered to log in to take the payment. She's not giving her credit card info to the internet! So I handed her a mailer and she said she would send it back. Two weeks later, I get her donation. She wrote down her credit card number, expiration, and CCV code, dropped it in the mail, sent it to my office so the receptionist could scan it and send it to me at home so I could log into the very same internet and enter her number.

[glitzy07]

Both of these are my mom.

She'll post on FB and IG every single time she goes to get her hair done, a facial, etc. I think she thinks she's helping my friend and sister's business, but it's just kind of funny over and over. She also posted when she was going in for a mammogram.

She also posts on FB and IG for every dead family member's birthday, wedding anniversary, death anniversary, etc and sends them "hugs and kisses in heaven."

[4speedy]

My mom is an older boomer (80). We went to lunch after with my DD (17) a few weeks ago. We arrived around 2pm at a resto that closed at 3:00. So we’re still eating at 2:30 when the waitress approached. She very politely explained she was refilling the salt shakers and could we please pass our shaker to her. She apologized for interrupting our meal. She went to an empty table nearby to fill the shaker and then very quickly returned it to us.

So my mom treated us and paid with her credit card. When filling in the tip amount, she asked me how much I thought she should deduct from the tip due to the incident. DD and I both stared at her with puzzled looks on our faces. Then I finally said “was there an incident? I think I missed it”. My mom says “You know, the incident with the salt shaker. I don’t think she should get her full tip because of that.” I was dumbfounded that a waitress should lose her tip for doing her job. The entire “incident” lasted less than a minute. And she was super polite about it. It was really weird. I have no idea what gymnastics my moms brain did to get to that conclusion. Obviously I had DD sneak back and drop a few extra bucks on the table.

[starburst604]

May 4, 2023 14:37:31 GMT -5 4speedy said:

My mom is an older boomer (80). We went to lunch after with my DD (17) a few weeks ago. We arrived around 2pm at a resto that closed at 3:00. So we’re still eating at 2:30 when the waitress approached. She very politely explained she was refilling the salt shakers and could we please pass our shaker to her. She apologized for interrupting our meal. She went to an empty table nearby to fill the shaker and then very quickly returned it to us.

So my mom treated us and paid with her credit card. When filling in the tip amount, she asked me how much I thought she should deduct from the tip due to the incident. DD and I both stared at her with puzzled looks on our faces. Then I finally said “was there an incident? I think I missed it”. My mom says “You know, the incident with the salt shaker. I don’t think she should get her full tip because of that.” I was dumbfounded that a waitress should lose her tip for doing her job. The entire “incident” lasted less than a minute. And she was super polite about it. It was really weird. I have no idea what gymnastics my moms brain did to get to that conclusion. Obviously I had DD sneak back and drop a few extra bucks on the table.

I haaaate going to a restaurant with my MIL. She thinks she's some kind of gourmet (this is a woman who makes cream of crap pork chop casserole) and almost always has some kind of comment about her meal, especially if she didn't choose the restaurant. Once she ordered a pasta dish and asked for fresh ground pepper, but the server came back with a little cup of red pepper flakes. It was clear what they were, why would black pepper be in a cup? I watched her dump it all over her food and then almost choke when she took a bite of it. Yes they brought the wrong thing, but how did you not realize that?? 

[sweetchix]

When my dad calls me and gets my voicemail, he always gives me the day/time of the call and who he is. “Hey Shell, it’s dad. It’s about 5:44 on Thursday…”

First of all, most of his calls could have been a text, lol. And my call history gives me that information dad!!!

Also, not sure if this is a boomer thing or just my dad, but he refers to himself as dad or grandpa when talking to us. “Don’t forget to save a hot dog for dad” “give grandpa a hug”. I started joking with him and asking if we’re siblings 🤣