Old people are the worst . . . aren’t they?

We’d looked forward to seeing this new movie, “Elvis,” for six months and finally we were there.

We were there in our favorite seats front and center where hardly anybody sits anymore because people all seem to prefer the stadium seats to the floor seats even though the screen can’t fill your face from that distance and occasionally people will walk past at the bottom of your field of vision on the aisle in front of the stadium seats.

Another advantage with the floor seating is that usually nobody is in front of you, especially young people on their cell phones, many of who think it’s OK if they are just texting because that light from their phone doesn’t bother them and they’re not talking, so “what’s your problem, Man!” But the public service trailers in the previews have for the most part done their job and young people don’t seem to be doing as much texting during movies as they used to, as best I can tell . . . unless they’re doing it in their stadium seats where we can’t see it.

But then there’s “the talkers,” and, as I said . . . old people are the worst offenders.

For one thing, they can’t hear. So what do they do? Well, they sure as hell don’t whisper, do they?

And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of such old people talkers sat right behind us just before the lights went down and the trailers before the movie started playing.

Now once upon a more civilized time, this was the cue for everybody in the movie theatre to shut the hell up, wasn’t it? And all old people had been raised by their parents to not talk in movie theaters at all, unless it was a very soft whisper in the ear of your date but only during the trailers and NEVER during the movie.

Not these two old people behind us. They must’ve been raised by hillbillies . . . no even hillbillies know better . . . these two must’ve been raised by . . . you know what? I’m stumped. I can’t think of any sentient being that doesn’t raise their offspring NOT to talk in movies. These two must’ve been dropped onto our planet completely uncouth and ignorant of all common decency.

When the two extraordinarily originated pair of old people movie talkers kept talking past the trailers . . . during which we’d extended them some of the grace by which we, ourselves, had been saved . . . and into the start of the movie, my beautiful bride of forty two years slightly cleared her throat with the universally recognized and commonly understood, “Uhm hm.”

A second passed . . . and then my bride’s polite request was thrown back at her with the haughty old woman’s louder, “UHM HMMM!”

OK. That does it. Nobody challenges my hot mama and gets a way with it!

I gave the two an audibly whispered over my shoulder reply, “Please stop talking, or I will call the manager.”

You gotta back your baby’s play right? You’d have done it too, if you called your self a man, which I sometimes do call myself . . . especially in moments like these.

For a split second, we thought my manly warning had done the job.

Then the old woman said, “Don’t scold me. We paid our money to get in here.”

Now my hot mama answered back, “And we paid our money too, and it wasn’t to listen to you two.”

THAT did the trick.

The two old people were quiet through the entire rest of a pretty wonderful movie that we all enjoyed together . . . all except for what I took to be a deliberate protest of popcorn bag shaking a few minutes into the movie that I knew was the old woman’s last gesture of defiance.

When we exited the theatre a couple of hours later, I told Karen, “That was great. I loved all the music, and the kid who played Elvis really knocked it out of the park. But I wish I could have seen the movie without that old woman stuck in my head.”

Karen agreed with me.

“To their credit,” I said, “They did shut the hell up for the rest of the movie after you said what you did . . . all except for that popcorn bag rattle the old lady . . . only I didn’t say “lady” . . . did in protest.”

“No, THAT’s alright,” Karen said, “I do THAT too sometimes.”