re: #52 retired cynic

When I was five, and starting kindergarten, the 4-5-6 graders were upstairs in the grade school I attended. As far as I was concerned, THEY were adults.

Exactly. It’s so easy for adults to forget how much deference young children give older ones based approximately on the factor of the two ages. The difference between 4 and 17 is the same as between 10 and 42 & 1/2. This shit really pisses me off. One of my major pet peeves is when people act so goddamned fucking hyper literal in their definition of something that they completely ignore an absolutely goddamned key factor in understanding a situation.