What's the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?
I've always been fascinated by the precise moment a perfectly reasonable human being starts treating minor inconveniences as constitutional violations. One day you're young, spontaneous and open to new experiences. The next, you're turning down the car radio because apparently it helps you see better when parking and referring to 8:30 p.m. as "the middle of the bloody night." Somewhere along the way, people begin confusing getting older with becoming permanently offended by everything. And I thought: surely there's a book in that. Not another solemn guide to aging gracefully. We've got enough people telling women to embrace their wrinkles while selling them a $90 cream to remove them. I wanted to write something that made people laugh at the ridiculous little habits we acquire, recognize themselves in the uncomfortable ones and perhaps reconsider whether the world has actually become unbearable or whether somebody just moved their favorite chair. But this book also became unexpectedly personal. While I was finishing it, I lost my Auntie Toots. I pushed to complete it in time to dedicate it to her on the day of her funeral. Suddenly, a book about growing older had become a reminder of something much bigger: how important it is to keep laughing, keep living and leave people with reasons to smile when they remember you. That dedication means more to me than I can properly put into words. And perhaps that's the whole point of the book: getting older is inevitable. Becoming a miserable spectator of your own life isn't.
If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of your book, what would they be? (Meant to be fun. Skip if you need to!)
My main character is less a person and more a highly organized collection of grievances wearing orthopedic footwear. She has three musical personalities : - “I Will Survive” for when life throws something genuinely difficult at her. - “My Way” for when somebody suggests she might be wrong. - And “Another One Bites the Dust” for when a supermarket rearranges the shelves without consulting her first. Her greatest talent is turning a perfectly ordinary Tuesday into a three-act courtroom drama. The prosecution rests. The manager has been summoned. Nobody is getting a refund.
What's your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?
I love humor, satire, and anything that exposes the extraordinary nonsense hiding inside ordinary human behavior. The books that stay with me are the ones that make me laugh and then, three pages later, make me slightly uncomfortable because I've realized the joke was about me. That's also what I love about writing. I think humor is one of the few ways you can tell people an uncomfortable truth without immediately triggering a defensive PowerPoint presentation. A good joke makes you laugh. A great joke makes you laugh, stop, and think, “Hang on. I do that.” And then you laugh again, considerably less confidently.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
My reading pile has reached the stage where it should probably be declared a structural hazard. There's humor, psychology, satire, and several books about human behavior, which is a polite way of saying I'm professionally interested in why people are so spectacularly strange. I also have a terrible habit of buying books faster than I can read them. Apparently, owning a book and reading it are two entirely different hobbies. One of them I'm excellent at.
What scene in your book was your favorite to write?
Choosing a favorite is like asking a parent to choose their favorite child. Except mine are 100 increasingly questionable life decisions, several of which probably require professional supervision. I particularly loved exploring the precise moment a perfectly reasonable woman begins her transformation into a fully operational Grumpy Old Lady. First, you keep an empty biscuit tin because it's a good tin. Then you develop strong opinions about how other people load dishwashers. Before long, you're demanding to know why the supermarket moved the marmalade, as though someone has personally violated the Geneva Conventions. And the terrifying thing is, you were right about the dishwasher. I also had enormous fun with the Grump-O-Meter, Old-Lady Bingo and the “Are You Becoming Your Mother?” test. There's something deliciously unfair about opening a humor book to laugh at other people's habits, only to discover you've scored alarmingly well on a psychological assessment you never agreed to take. The reader arrives expecting to identify the grumpy old lady in their life. My favorite moment is when they realize she's been holding the book all along.
Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)
I have a habit of noticing perfectly ordinary human behavior and then thinking about it for considerably longer than any healthy adult should. For example, why do people keep the boxes their phones came in? The phone is in their pocket. The warranty is online. Yet somewhere in the house, a beautiful empty cardboard box is being preserved like the ashes of a beloved relative. I find these things fascinating. Someone arguing with a self-checkout machine? Research. Someone saving a gift bag for the eleventh consecutive Christmas? Potential chapter material. The problem is, once you start writing observational humor, you can't switch it off. Every dinner, shopping trip, and family gathering becomes a psychological field study. I also read my jokes aloud to see if they're actually funny. Which means writing probably sounds like a man repeatedly telling himself jokes and occasionally expressing disappointment. It's a dignified profession. And probably why people have started behaving more carefully around me.
Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
Getting older is mandatory. Becoming an old fart is a personal decision. And I don't think being an old fart has much to do with age. You can be 35 and already furious about how the neighbors arrange their recycling. You can be 85 and still be the most interesting person at the table. To me, the danger isn't wrinkles, grey hair, or gravity slowly relocating parts of your body without your permission. It's losing your curiosity. Deciding you've seen enough, tried enough, learned enough, and that the world would be significantly improved if everyone simply did things your way. That's when you really start getting old. The wrinkles are just paperwork.
If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?
That growing old and becoming old are two very different things. You can have wrinkles, aching knees, terrible eyesight, and a drawer containing enough unidentified charging cables to operate a small airport. That's aging. Congratulations. You're doing it correctly. But becoming bitter, suspicious of everything new, permanently offended by minor inconveniences, and convinced the world was better when everything came with a paper instruction manual? That's optional. I think the real tragedy of getting older isn't losing your youth. It's losing your curiosity while you're still here to enjoy it. So laugh at yourself. Change your mind occasionally. Try something ridiculous. Be the oldest person in the room with the youngest sense of possibility. Because the goal isn't to die young. It's to stay alive for as long as you're living. And please, throw away the toaster box. It's not coming back for it.
John Forgetson is the author of the new book 100 Ways Not To Become a Grumpy Old Lady
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