My mother-in-law sent me one of those dumb email forwards. This one was one of her very favorite sort: it lamented the passing of Mr. Common Sense, going on to say all the things old people believe: that children don’t respect their elders anymore, that nobody spends within their means anymore, that no one dresses properly anymore, that no one bothers to learn their sums anymore, that no one knows the meaning of hard work anymore, and so on. Also, everything’s so expensive, the portions in restaurants are huge, and you kids get off my lawn.

I’ll say this: Mr. Common Sense’s passing must not have been recent, because GENERATIONS of old people have been talking about it. It is astonishing that anyone who isn’t elderly manages to raise children or keep to a budget or hold down a job, or that the human race manages to continue on at all, considering how the elderly are the last of the people with any common sense.