Ageist Criticism

Two weeks ago I sat at the Bistro with my professor's four year old daughter. Julia contemplatively munched her Sunchips and I gulped grape-flavored water with sweetners that will probably kill me while answering questions such as, "Why are those girls brown and those girls aren't?" and "Does Cinderella live in that castle?", Julia's tiny finger inclined toward the Chapel. Until very recently, children amused me about as much as amusement parks (verdict: highly unamusing), but now, as I creep precariously nearer to the child-bearing age, I find that not only do I like them, but they fascinate me.

But this story isn't about my newfound appreciation for little kids. It's about prejudicial old men.

Initially I thought he was flirting with me. From the next table over a seemingly harmless older man clad in a hat and tan jacked asked me my name, if Julia was mine (to which I replied a vehement NO!), identified himself as a retiree, a returning grad-student, a grandfather of two boys. To his inquiries I replied that I was a senior, an English Lit major, involved with activity x, y and z at Trinity.

He seemed all right, if a little tiresome due to a pronounced tendency toward attention seeking, but my Spidey-Senses (finely attuned to outing creepy older men) soon began to niggle at me, urging me to cease conversation with Mr. Retired Grad Student. As politely as I could, I shortened my answers, turned by body away from him and attended fully to Julia, discussing the far more interesting topics of flowers and French fries. As is a habit with men, after I rejected him, he moved on to a younger woman. A much younger woman.

Mr. Retired Grad Student tried to engage Julia, asking her her age, what her mommy taught, how she liked school. I gently directed Julia's gaze back to me and hoped she'd eat her chips faster. Fortunately, Julia soon grew distracted by some birds outside, and I prayed this would bring our interaction wtih Mr. Retired Grad Student to a close. Instead, because I think the Gods of social interaction loathe and despise me, his rusty train of semi-creepy palaver jumped its tracks and began to barrel back in my direction.
"Usually lots of people come sit with me before class. I don't know where they all are today," he began.
Really? I thought. Shocking. I smiled, offered a clipped, "I'm sure they'll be here soon."
"I'm taking a graduate course on James Joyce," he confided proudly.
"Oh?" I asked, actually truly interested for the first time. "With Rosen? I wanted so badly to take that, but with a senior thesis and other activities I don't think I would've had time."
"Well I hate having undergraduates in my classes," he told me matter-o-factly. "They do everything slapdash and the quality of their work is embarrassing. They obviously put very little effort into it because none of them care, you know?"
"Excuse me?" I asked, hoping I'd somehow mistaken or misheard that ugly, blatant shitslinging.
"They're useless, undergraduates. They have no place in graduate courses, even if the professor lets them in."
"I'm an undergraduate," I said, my face reddening with disbelief and good old fashioned pissiness. "Have some respect."

I should added more to that. I should have fought then. I'd have said that undergraduates are not retirees who, at age 65, are going back to school for fun; we may not have professional lives and families to attend as do many, many graduate students, but we have four other classes and a potpourri of extracurriculars to which we devote our time. Completing assignments, reading, spending the kind of time an individual without a job and with one other class (like Mr. Retired Graduate Student) may be able to devote is an impossibility for us. This does not, however, I repeat does not mean that we don't care.

I was deciding how much of this I wanted to lay on my new nemesis when Julia conveniently announced she wanted to go play tea party. She rolled up the top of her bag of chips, stood up and pulled me with her. I didn't bother to offer the man a goodbye and I was thankful my teacup that afternoon was imaginary: my fists were in good form to shatter some heirloom china.

For the rest of the week I stewed. Three days ago I saw him again.

He was shuffling through the PRs in the library where I'd been running my fingers over gilded spines for nearly a half an hour, hunter-gathering thesis sources. He looked me over cursorily and we made brief eye contact. No recognition. As he glanced about the shelves around him, definitely overwhelmed, I smiled internally. I do believe, I thought slyly, it is playtime.
"Need some help?" I asked, approaching him cheerily as he squinted through glasses slipping down his nose.
"Why, yes. I'm looking for PS...PS.547."
"Well, these are the PRs," I told him. "Here. Come with me. I'll show you." I led him to the PS section, commenting on the weather and the nearness of Thanksgiving. Upon arrival I inquired of him what book he sought. He proffered a sheet on which a call number was scrawled and as he bumbled about, perusing the wrong shelf in vain hopes of finding his book, I employed my mad library skillz to slickly locate it and deposit it in his hands.
"There you go, sir," I said with that special, private smile for insipid assholes I've perfected, working retail since the age of 16.
"Ah. Good," he said, thumbing through the book and briefly checking the title to make certain I'd indeed presented him with the correct volume. He looked up at me again. "You know. I'm a grad student here." Clearly, he was pleased with himself.
I returned his proud stare with an accompanying broad grin. "I know," I told him, "and you hate undergraduates in your classes."
We stared at one another for a long moment, he in wonderment, I in satisfaction. I tilted my head affectedly to one side, scrunched my nose, eyes and mouth into the sort of smile I'd give to a particularly winsome little lapdog, and began to step merrily off down the aisle.
"That...that's interesting..." he called as I reached the end of the stack. Still grinning, I turned to look at him over my shoulder.
"It was," I said as though congratulating him, "until it got incredibly insulting." I folded my arms, assuming a look and tone of mock confusion. "And as a graduate student of English," I added, pausing dramatically. "I'd think you'd have learned that the most important lesson is to know your audience."'

I winked, waved goodbye, pivoted on my heel and left him there slackjawed, smiling all the way back to my room. Sometimes I'm slightly badass.