We got a new stock of office supplies today (I have an unnatural and unabiding love of office supplies) and included were dry erase markers with the eraser attached.
I declared them ‘cool’ and then said to the receptionist “remember those eraseable bic pens that were all the rage in highschool? They were blue with a black eraser and they worked like crap but we all tried to erase stuff just because we could?”
She looked at me blankly and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And yesterday, as I saw three kids in the open back of a pick up truck, laughing and standing up, I yelled in my car “We’ll see how funny it is when you break your necks!”
When I realized that I am old enough to be the mother of a college freshman. And I wouldn’t have had to be unusually young when the kid was born, either. This revelation was especially startling because my own child is only 2, and when I was pregnant with her, I was worried that I might not be mature enough to handle being a mother!
When I showed my son my groovy retro four color pen (blue barrell - with the little thingies you pushed down to change ink color) and he wanted to know if it was a new thing. He didn’t believe me when I told him we had these when I was in Jr. High - it was too “cool” according to him.
The increasing frequency with which adults respond to my references to Major Things and Events from the period of my teen-age years with “I wasn’t born then,” or “Well, I was only three,” or suchlike.
Last night, one of my housemates cranked Zeppelin’s “Hot Dog” and I remarked that I’d forgotten how kick-ass Zeppelin was – that I was right into them when I was thirteen but neglected to look back after I got into the blues a few years later. He said that he’d never heard Zeppelin until he was an adult, and his first exposure to “Hot Dog” was as the soundtrack to some video game. The guy doesn’t remember a time when Zeppelin concert shirts were a de facto uniform for Boys of a Certain Age. He’s thirty. :eek:
(Don’t they have horribly ubiquitous Classic Rock Radio in Alabama?)
Oh-- and some time ago a guy in the street asked me where I had purchased the leather jacket I was wearing. He seemed genuinely disappointed to learn that I’d had it for over twenty years and didn’t remember where it had originally come from.
I was genuinely alarmed to realize that I’d had it for over twenty years and didn’t remember where it had come from.
I was visiting in Frankenmuth, Michigan. ( our #1 tourist attraction. Come for the chicken, stay for the outlet mall. There is a great toy shop there. Don’t miss it.)
Anywhooo, I was in an YeOlde Tyme Candy Shoppe* and noted that the business card taped to the Olde Tyme-y register had a correction for the area code.
I mentioned to the Young Thing working the cash register that, " I remember when Michigan was three area codes."
“Really?”
“313 was southern Michigan. 616 was Anything North of frankenmuth ( I think),the west side of Michigan and da UP. 810 for the burbs eventually. Now there are about 90000 and who knows where anyone is calling from or lives anymore.”
“Gosh.”
I am pretty sure I was conflicted when I left that Olde Candy Shoppe and either wanted to beat her over the head with a nice hefty Ma Bell phone or force her to have only one phone, attached to the kitchen wall and has a cord as a punishment for the good times she missed with having all her convo’s made family fodder.
*Is this spelling of Ye Olde Shoppes one of the most annoying things ever or what? Discuss.
Oooh, earlier this week my brother sent me a souvenir from his trip to Hawaii. It’s a tiki idol shaped bottle opener (because we are classy like that). He wrote the note as if he were Greg Brady writing to Marcia Brady, because, duh, it’s a tiki idol. I thought this was hilarious, but when I shared this with my coworkers (the package was sent to my office), some of the younger adults didn’t know exactly what I was talking about. They knew about the Brady Bunch … but I found myself having to explain the whole darn story " … so then there was this tarantula!"
Good grief, I felt ultra old. Passing on the ins and outs of the Brady Bunch Hawaii episode as oral tradition!
For me, it wasn’t having to get a job, or the end of the honeymoon, or buying a house, or having kids, or getting fired, or watching my parents and siblings age.
I felt old when, at age 34, I switched from drinking unhealthy amounts of Dr. Pepper every day to drinking unhealthy amounts of diet Dr. Pepper every day.
Who the heck is Ma Bell?
Kidding… I know what it is, but try that one on the Young Thing.
Mine was just last night. I was sitting in the car on break at work. This adorable little girl is riding around on her bike, sprakly streamers, flowers on the wheels, training wheels, cute overload. Her father was riding with her. I looked at him and thought if I saw him by himself, I’d call him “kid”.
A few years ago on Memorial Day weekend, the minister was giving a children’s sermon and talking about the different wars up to Desert Storm (this was prior to the current Iraq war). He said something about “I know none of you were born during any of these wars…” and it just suddenly hit me. Some of those kids were almost as old as I’d been DURING Desert Storm. That was such a big thing during my upper elementary life, and it was long enough ago that kids were in upper elementary and didn’t remember it!
I understood then why it had always made adults feel old when I was a kid and they’d say things like “You weren’t even born when the Vietnam war ended.”
Upper elementary?? I was a senior in high school! Kids I’d gone to school with the year before were sent over there! If you feel old, I must be antique! Thanks for giving me something to write about, kid
The Gulf War, yes. That will do it. 14 is a reasonable age, but I abruptly realize these people were born during the Gulf War, and they’re now capable of carrying on a reasoned conversation. Then I do the math. sigh
