vilakins | Ficlet: Young People Today

The last of the three b7friday cross-posts. For those upset by the last fic, here's a more upbeat PGP. The TV Trope this time is Grumpy Old Man.

Young People Today

"Look, Mr Avon! You got a visitor!"

"I can see that. Go away."

"What, me?" Vila looked aggrieved.

"I meant her, but I really don't mind."

"Oooh, he's a cheeky one!" said the attendant to Vila. "Would you like me to bring your lunch now, Mr Avon?"

"Is cabbage one of its components?"

"We-erl... yeah."

"Then just pour it straight down the drain without making me the middle man."

"Tsk! Really. He doesn't mean it, you know," she said confidentially to Vila as she went out. He shook his head at how little she knew Avon.

"I thought she'd never leave."

"S'pose you're expecting me to as well. No such luck. Nice day, today. Want to go out in the garden?"

"Vila. It will take me several minutes to stand up, and quite a few more to get out there, and by that time I shall have to start back to be inside before nightfall."

"You’re in a gravchair. I'll push you."

"You most certainly will not! And besides," Avon added acerbically, "you're only offering so that you can lean on the thing."

Vila looked hurt. "I'm still very spry, so Soolin says." He executed a little jig.

"An adjective only applied to people of our age."

"Y'know, next thing you'll be going on about young people today."

"And why not? Look at that idiot attendant. Decent Alpha stock, but she puts on a Delta accent. Lower grade chic, they call it."

"Yeah, funny that. When they first abolished the system, people used to be ashamed of once being Gammas or Deltas, but now they're proud of it."

"No accounting for taste. And they all have it far too easy."

"Oh, Avon! That's what we fought for! You really want them to have it as tough as we did?"

Just then, the attendant came in with some sandwiches in which cabbage was conspicuous by its absence, and while Vila was picking through them for something tasty and vegetarian, Avon muttered savagely, "Yes."