We all know someone older than we are. Some of us even have parents who might fit that description. There are also folks out there you might describe as 'old people'. Anyone can become an old person (OP), but what turns a perfectly level-headed human into an OP? We all get older, and at some point we might be worried about changing into an OP ourselves, or we may merely feel the need to mock someone who is displaying the symptoms. This is a tongue-in-cheek manual for everyone; how to behave if you are an old person, how not to behave if you want to resist becoming an old person, or how really have some fun mocking an old person. Alas there is no secret to eternal youth revealed here (perhaps in the next study, due in 2090) but if you know what to look out for, you are in with a chance of a longer life; you will become to realise that getting old is not inevitable and if you really want to, can be avoided like a plague of boiled sweets (you know the ones).