Adrian Barich: dark TV shows, people talking on their phone’s speaker mode and other boomer complaints

I did a very un-boomer like thing this week. I took my dog to the gym. Yep, Frankie watched on as I went through a dozen or so F45 stations and apart from a couple of yelps he did great.

And while most of my gym buddies had no problems with the canine addition to our weight lifting, I could sense a few of the baby boomers in the shed (that is, anyone born between 1946 and 1965) thought I was off my rocker.

Further probing confirmed that, in general, the boomers of Subiaco weren’t really that happy with another example of dog people taking over the world. In their eyes, dogs should never really leave the house unless they are going for ”walkies”.

One fella admitted he doesn’t understand the whole “dog as a surrogate child thing”, adding these so-called fur babies are bobbing up everywhere, even in restaurants (he didn’t say “by crikey” but he didn’t need to).

Interesting, isn’t it, the generation gap — and I say that knowing that technically I’m a boomer. I like to think of myself as a boomer with a millennial twist.

Researching further, I discovered a few other things that those born after World War II (when there was an enormous spike in our population) don’t really like about the modern world.

Turns out some hate leaf blowers (way too loud) while others despise the self-checkout at the supermarket. It appears hardly anyone over the age of 60 likes QR code menus.

My favourite response to my question, “what gives you the irrits?” Probably old mate who said he was tired of everyone needing to have an “opinion” on everything, even if they had zero knowledge on the subject.

Though just as good was the lady who thought people should still dress up when going to the airport.

I hope everyone is taking notes because in case you haven’t noticed, it’s not just the dogs taking over Australia, it’s a grey tsunami of boomers and gen X (people born 1965-1980).

Generation X is sometimes called the “latchkey generation”, which stems from their returning from school to an empty home and needing to use a key to let themselves in — a result of the rise of dual income families.

Some of the boomer complaints are quite understandable, though. For example, that so few people return shopping trolleys to the store and how many passwords we need nowadays.

People cutting off family members for very little reason is another time I say “hold your horses”. And I’m sick and tired of dark shows. And when I say dark I mean, please turn up the lights. I’d have enjoyed Game Of Thrones a whole lot more if I could have seen what was going on.

Someone mentioned that everyone needs a takeaway coffee these days. You can hardly go to work unless you’re carrying a coffee cup, it seemed to them.

People who talk on their phone in speaker mode is also barbaric behaviour, in my opinion. I think it has something to do with an overwhelming fear of developing brain cancer?

I’ll tell you one thing I do know for sure: we should send more handwritten notes. No one does it much anymore, but gee it makes people feel good: that you actually went out of your way to write something down rather than just send a text or email.

Young people will have to work on their handwriting though. The scrawl in the examples I have seen is embarrassingly bad.

And I’ll tell you another thing for free: I love that the State Government is investing hundreds of thousands of dollars on a anti-ageism campaign to discourage the use of the term “boomer”. I’m tired of my son saying “no worries, boomer” when I start one of my “it wouldn’t have happened in my day” rants.

“OK boomer” can get in the bin, too. Ironically, my prize for the most boomer complaint of the month goes to Peta Cummings, a member of the Mandurah Old Farts (a bunch of couples who have remained friends over 50 years).

Ms Cummings, 74, branded the campaign to erase boomer from the lexicon “just political correctness gone crazy”. Love it.