The entire languageandgrammar.com staff went to dinner recently and were taken aback by an excessively loud conversation going on nearby (It was so loud that it was impossible not to hear), most notably when a woman around 60 said to a man in his 80s, “I’m glad my parents aren’t alive to see what’s going on today.”

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, this woman is apparently glad that her parents are dead. Her parents, you see, must have just been too sensitive to deal with the world as it is today; therefore, it’s best that they’re dead.

First of all, I’m sure that her parents had dealt with many things that were difficult–perhaps even worse than–gasp–some of what is going on today. She should have given them some credit. Second, she was saying this to a man who was clearly more in the generation of her parents than her own; was she suggesting that perhaps he’d be better off dead as well?

I know (or at least I hope) that she didn’t mean it in a literal way; she most likely meant that her parents would have objected to things that are going on today or that her parents would be concerned about the future based on the present.

She should have said that, especially since she was talking to an entire restaurant full of people.

–Paul