"Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing." (Jane Harrison) Particularly when it allows the geriatric to get away with words and deeds that he or she wouldn't have dared utter ten or fifteen years ago. Specifically, when that same geriatric was in the wrong to begin with.

Forgive my irreverence, and my apparent indifference to the customs that dictate respect for the elderly. I usually feel honored to give my seat away to lolas and lolos, and I strongly feel for the old bag ladies and sampaguita vendors who stay out in the streets to earn their daily crust. By rights, the elderly should be enjoying the fruits of their labors. Truly. I just don't believe that old age is an absolute license for someone to be an absolute and misplaced boor. Which is precisely what I nearly called that charming old lady in a bland-colored frock at the Guadalupe MRT station.

I was the first person in front of the lift at the southbound side of the MRT III in Guadalupe at around four in the afternoon yesterday. There were several moments of bliss when there was no one behind me to act as the irresistible force that moves me into the lift's tiny compartment. I stood about a foot away from its doors. Of course, those moments of solitude are as fleeting as the shadow of a swallow's wing over the lake.

The doors opened, and I moved a step back to allow the passengers of the lift to depart from its coveted interior. There is nothing as annoying as having to wrestle one's way out through a doorway. There were seven other people behind and to my side. I stepped forward to take my rightful place (don't I just sound like an arrogant so and so?) in the lift, but this old woman had the smart idea of pushing herself and her grandchild past me first. Well, she wasn't that old. Probably sixty, if a day. Because of the physics of boarding a lift, I couldn't very well curtsy and say, "Please. Go ahead' at that precise moment. Okay. I could probably have done just that - and ended up on my knees, squashed face flat against the inner wall of the lift. Apparently it does not please the overtaker to have the intended overtakee move as well. Never mind that the door can accommodate the two of us and a Dalmatian all at the same time.

I don't know if the old woman was high on the thrill of the impunity against reprisal that senior citizenship sometimes adduces, but she then had the gall to complain, "Ba't kasi nauuna ang mga bata" in that aggrieved, censuring tone. I was the only one of my age bracket there, and I've been repeatedly told I that I look much younger than I really am.

Bullocks. What was she expecting, the red carpet or something? I would have dearly loved to make a cutting retort, but that is one of the heights of rudeness, and I don't want aspersions to be cast on la mia famiglia's ability to impart the Ps and Qs. So I contented myself with donning an air of innocence and serenity, whilst I seethed inside and hoped it would rile her to be ignored.

Aargh. The things people have to bear with in the name of civility and good manners. There are times when I just want to bury Miss Manners' book six feet under.