I wouldn’t want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing.

Since I wasn’t in class to talk about this piece, I thought I’d share my two cents through the blog.

I read this story three times. Each time, I tried not to be biased towards the young waiter. But I couldn’t help it; I ended up hating the young waiter even more. What bothered me about the younger waiter was his naivety. He blatantly assumes that after someone grows old they have nothing to live for. The young waiter tells the old man he “should have killed [himself] last week”. He took advantage of the fact that the old man was deaf to say this. The fact that the old man was deaf also made him lonelier in the world. He couldn’t hear the things people said about him. He was in his own little world. Personally, if I overhead this conversation between the two waiters, I would have slapped the young waiter. But that’s just me.

Many people are afraid of growing old; the idea of your life deteriorating is a lot to grasp. But isn’t our life deteriorating the moment we’re born? It’s not like we continue to live on forever. We all eventually die. But I digress. [I do that a lot] back to the old man and the young waiter. The younger waiter eventually converses with the old waiter; both of their opinions differ. The old waiter understands the old man. The young waiter is impatient and wants to go home. He thinks the old man should buy a bottle and drink at home, alone. The old waiter understands why he doesn’t do that.

I don’t think the young waiter understands that the old man was once young and had a vivacious life. As time went on, things obviously changed. The old waiter explains, “It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night [he] is reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café”. The café reminds the old man and the old waiter that they’re not so lonely. It helps them feel a little better because they know that somewhere in another café there is someone else sitting with a drink. If they were sitting at home, drinking alone, it would constantly remind them about lonely they truly are. The young man doesn’t understand this because he something to look forward to when he goes home.