Recently, an 85 year old woman, Marilyn Hagerty, who lives in North Dakota, made headlines because she wrote a review for the newly opened Olive Garden restaurant in her town.

She writes articles on the new additions in her town for her town’s local newspaper. For some reason this review went viral with over 700,000 views on her newspaper’s website, being shared on Facebook over 21,000 times and being tweeted over 14,000 times only after a week of it being posted.

“I do not get it,” Hagerty said in response to all the attention. “I mean, I’m sitting here minding my own business yesterday morning, trying to get my Friday column finished off so I could go play bridge. And all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose.”

Similar to Hagerty, I don’t quite understand why this article became so popular. She has written reviews before and has never been discovered by people outside of her area. The only logical reason I can think for this happening is because Marilyn Hagerty is a cute old lady. And we seem to like the things that cute old people do simply because they are cute old people.

When I asked some other seniors about this they not only agreed, they shared stories to make the point that old people are allowed to say and do outrageous things without being judged.

“My grandma used to have a super soaker so she could shoot the cats that would come onto her lawn,” said VHS senior Cara McGinley.

VHS senior Lisa Fitzgerald says that although her grandma has a cane she “uses her cane to attract young men to help her with things, hit people she doesn’t like, and to get things down from high shelves. She doesn’t need it to walk at all.”

“My grandma has this one joke, and she thinks that it is okay to tell me it every time I see her,” Said Junior Sophie Park about her grandmother.

“Today I went home for lunch and my grandma said to me “I’m doing all this laundry because I forgot how to work the TV!” said senior Isaac Rubins.

“My grandma was staying over my house and I was going to sleep so I said “Goodnight Grandma, I’ll see you tomorrow!” And she responded with “Okay Isaac! Be careful!””

One time I asked my own grandma if she needed help with her seatbelt and she responded with “no I didn’t have the chicken nuggets today.”

My own great aunt used to hold her nose when people would talk to her because she thought it would make her hear better.

Old people – they are unpredictable, but entertaining. Apparently even a review of the local Olive Garden is amusing enough, if written by someone who’s 85, to entertain nearly a million people.