Friday, March 07, 2008

Five signs I am obviously 33 going on 63

  1. I just spent $62 on anti-wrinkle products in a quite likely futile attempt to stave off an inevitable process that I'm not ready to accept. At the moment, I am worried only about my face, but I'm sure it's only a matter of months before I'm whining that I feel bad about my neck.

  2. Recently I made a joke during an exchange with a waitress, and she just smiled an uncertain, nervous "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I still want a tip so I'll humor you" smile. I have seen that same smile on countless waitrons over the years, but never as a result of something I said. No, generally my near-elderly dad is the source of that. I had no idea I was so close behind. (Incidentally, the date I was with got the joke. But he said he knew immediately that our waitress wouldn't.)

  3. On a related note, I recently complimented the youngster manning the register at Target on his unusually fine and careful bagging job by comparing it to Tetris. And then I looked at him with a sideways glance and asked, "Are you old enough to remember Tetris?" Apparently kids still play Tetris, so he looked at me like I was insane. Or, you know, 63. Which obviously I am. Good lord.

  4. I had my first quilting class Wednesday night, and not only am I quilting, but my back is sore from it. I'm going to console myself with the thought that anyone would be a bit stiff after standing in a hunched over position for well over an hour because they're too focused on the new and unfamiliar task at hand to, I don't know, grab a chair and SIT DOWN? The alternative (that I'm so out of shape that even quilting is a workout for me) is simply too ludicrous to consider.

  5. I fell on my ass (or rather, my hip) walking out of a parking ramp the other day, and I have been taking tiny, careful, old-lady steps to avoid a similar mishap ever since. In a strange bit of coincidence, the emails collecting in my Spam folder lately have repeatedly referred to hip implants. As I am perhaps unreasonably convinced that Yahoo spam is freakily customized to my age and lifestyle (they know I'm single, they know I'm 30-something, they know I'm balding and unable to please women with my male member... OK, just kidding on those last two, obviously), I've taken the hip implant messages personally, thinking Yahoo maybe knows something I don't. And what they know is I am old and feeble, clearly. Sigh. It couldn't possibly be that I just need better shoes. (It seems I lied to The Scientist after all. My shoes obviously aren't nearly sensible enough--at least not when there's this much ice around.)

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P.S. I'll post the answers to the movie quiz a bit later. I'm still a bit curious if anyone will be less stumped than the folks who commented thus far. (Note: Sign #6 that I'm 33 going on 63? Who says "folks," really??)
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19 comments:

Courtney said...

I'm glad kids still play Tetris. That makes me feel less old. Although I would have done the same thing and asked the bag boy if he knew what Tetris was, because I would have had no idea.

Poppy said...

OMG YOU ARE 63!

3carnations said...

The worst case of someone not getting my joke - At hubby's work function. There was an unpleasant task that his supervisor tackled. She joked to him "This is what you get to do when you're upper management." I laughed and said to hubby "It kind of makes me wonder what you do NOW." She gave me a puzzled look and walked away. Hubby said she later told him "I don't think your wife understood my joke." When he told me that, I got worked up - "Did you tell her I did get her joke, that she didn't understand my responding joke?" He said "I figured I should just let it go."

Anonymous said...

#2 - You're not going to tell us the joke? I'm dying over here.

#4 - I had a similar experience when I took my most recent knitting class. We all sat around the table in close quarters for over 2 hours. Without standing up or moving around at all. So not only were my fingers semi-permanently bent as if I were holding a needle, my back was hunched as if I was straining to count stitches on my needles (which I had to do more times than I wanted).

#5 - Regarding the spooky spam email coincidence, see my post here: http://greenpam.typepad.com/dailies/2008/01/whos-reading-my.html

lizgwiz said...

Oddly, my neck is maybe the only part of my body that seems to be aging well. I don't recall wrapping a scarf around it when I was laying in the sun as a younger person, but it seems so far to be immune to the sun damage that is making my chest and hands look older than their age.

Anonymous said...

Ha! I knew the neck thing was you.

Stefanie in Des Moines

p.s. I was just outside of the cities last weekend and I almost emailed you. Almost because I didn't want to seem all weird and stalkery. And then not because I was booked the whole time I was there.

Anonymous said...

I don't want to live in a world where kids don't play Tetris. I am a little concerned for you getting old, however...

Mickey said...

I'd say your case appears to be air-tight: you're old and getting older.

Luckily it's the weekend, so go out and do something young and stupid to make up for all that quilting!

shelleycoughlin said...

Oh Stef, I feel like I have more and more of these moments. I did laugh when you said you fell on your hip because that seems like an old lady move for real, but then again, I fall all the time. (And I hope you're not hurt.)

Whiskeymarie said...

Lately, I'm OBSESSED with moisturizing my neck. So, now I add my neck-moisturizing regimen to my already-packed facial-moisturizing regimen.
Pretty soon I won't even have time for my job.

I'm sore from cleaning this weekend. How sad is that?

metalia said...

It makes me very happy that kids are still playing Tetris. (And...now I have the Tetris theme song running through my head.)

L Sass said...

I am glad that Tetris is still going strong. It was always my favorite Game Boy game.

Anonymous said...

So what was the joke? You aren't going to leave us hanging, are you?

Stefanie said...

Hey all. I'm glad kids still play Tetris, too. Makes me feel like I'd be able to relate to them in at least some small way.

NPW and WM--Thank you for backing me up on some of these. Poppy and Noelle and Mickey had me worried I really AM one step away from elderly! ;-)

Pam and One Smart Cookie--Eh, it wasn't that funny. (It wasn't a joke-joke, just a silly comment.) It was Sideways-related, when I was ordering my wine. She didn't get it because, you know, apparently Sideways is an obscure movie that only three of us saw. Or, more likely, she didn't see it because she was in middle school when it came out.

Anonymous said...

You are making me paranoid. I do not use eye cream or moisturize my neck. I am doomed!

Anonymous said...

Um, I say "folks". Hmm.

Stefanie said...

R--And you don't wear sunglasses either! You are doomed indeed.

Lara--And that is just one of the many, many reasons you are my Internet BFF, my dear.

Aaron said...

Ah, yes, I've been worrying about this quite a bit myself lately. It freaked me out when I was watching Back to the Future the other night (a movie I clearly remember seeing in the theater several times) and it occurred to me that the movie is twenty three years old. In the movie itself, Michael J. Fox goes back in time thirty years. And come to think of it, they go forward thirty years in the sequel. Which is about seven years from now.

Ai-yi-yi.

Michelle | Bleeding Espresso said...

Very interesting to read the post in which the signs you're obviously 33 going on 63 and the reasons you might be insane meet.

Too bad the plastic bags on your feet thing happened after you wrote this list ;)