Young people say Hemingway sucks because until you've lived a little and seen the dark and long shadow of death creeping all over your hope, you won't understand a short story like "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." You are in essence the young waiter who is bored and annoyed by the old men who cling to their simple comforts instead of understanding it is the simple things that are truly the only bulwark against the nothing.