Actually, Joel, someone recently asked my daughter if I was her sister – and meant it! Shocked me, to be honest – she’s 27 and looks maybe 20, gets carded constantly – but it wasn’t just someone being flattering. I’ve had lots of people tell me I look young, and again I think they were being sincere. I’m not complaining. I feel young, too, except where the mileage of years has taken its toll on the ol’ body. Bad knees, hips, back…ache moan groan…yeah, weather’s coming, I can feel it in my bones…and the days when I woke up in the morning without everything hurting are a distant memory. But inside, I still feel like a 16-year-old pretending to be a grownup!
Yeah, I know my mother, who’s in her mid 50’s, can pass for someone in her mid 30’s, but I don’t know if inside she feels like a 16 year old pretending to be grown up. I wouldn’t think so, but then again, I never asked her.
Actually, mentioning getting carded reminded me, when I turned 21 I was working at a pizza parlor and was then able to become a bartender (obviously we just had beer and wine, no mixed drinks). Anyway, I was talking to another bartender about my concerns of having to card people who look like they’re 26 or under because what If I card someone older. she then told me how she carded someone who got upset because he had to go back out to his car to get his ID, and when he brought it back, it turned out that he was 34.
Doesn’t really have anything to do with this thread, I know, but I’ve always thought that it was an amusing story.
Okay, we all talk about how “un-adult” we act, but what different behaviors, exactly, do we expect “adults” to be doing?
My take is that we tend to imagine an “adult” simply as a person whose life is dominated by work and worry. Notice that most of the posts here have been of the general type that says “I have lots of stuff I do for fun, so I surely can’t be acting like an adult.”
What’s so “un-adult” about trying to enjoy your life?
You mean we’re…um, supposed to enjoy…our…lives?
no…goes…against…the…prime directive…can’t be…head explodes
If I get carded at 34 I’m going to take as a compliment! (Only…seven years…AAAAAGH! NOT POSSIBLE!) I only got mad at being carded once, when I was 21 and going to the movies. Yep, I got carded at the MOVIES. The girl thought I was under 17! “I can go next door and buy beer,” I told her as I shoved my ID at her.
From what I’ve seen of pictures of previous generations, people really are looking younger when they hit middle age than they used to. If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t think MT was older than her early 40s. I took my ex for mid-30s when I met him and about dropped my teeth when he confessed to being 42.
Now, if you all will excuse me, I have a Game Boy that is calling me!
I absolutely must take this moment to compliment this thread, its posters, and responses. How enjoyable, all of you! What wonderful comments and stories!
What kept me most interested is the decision of Joel to respond and maintain interest in his threads’ posters. I am very impressed! Wow!!!
This is beautiful. Maybe this occurs more than I’m aware, and if so - then Double Wow!
Lest this seem a total hi-jack, I would like to contribute that - no matter what age any of us are, our humanity and spirit keeps us young at heart.
So - cheers to Joel and each of you with your great responses! Carry on…!
skyzoo
I see that post as less of a hi-jack and more like a lot of needless sarcasm.
Joel, funny how different readers have different interpretations of the same post. Unless you and Skyzoo have a history of issues with each other, my first reaction for you is lighten up, man and accept a compliment. I would pay money to have someone compliment me on “thread maintenance”. As always YMMV, but that’s my 2 cents (as it happens that is exactly how much I can afford to pay someone for the aforementioned compliment).
That about sums up how I feel, too.
Yes, this is how I feel.
Tip: To avoid that “everything aches” feeling on getting up, avoid getting enough sleep. I find that I ache all over when I get up on non-work days, when I can sleep until my body wakes up of its own free will. On work days, when I have to drag myself out of bed long before I’ve had enough sleep, I don’t feel those aches. I hate getting up without enough sleep, but it does avoid the aches and pains.
As to not feeling like a grown up, I often feel that I’m not even doing a good job of maskerading as one! I think the people who either really are adults or are doing a good job of pretending to be probably manage to keep clutter under control, and do ordinary housecleaning chores at regular intervals.
LOL! Maybe, in the US, this is our Puritan heritage showing (which I think someone described as “the terrible fear that someone, somewhere may be having fun”).
This really saddenned me. I’m sorry you see it this way. I just probably don’t know how to express myself is all. I’m sorry for seeming offensive and sarcastic to you and anyone else. 
Thank you, Bugnorton, for this. It helped me feel a little less stupid and humiliated.
I have a lot to learn, and am still trying…
OK, if that post was totally sincere, then my appologies to Skyzoo
My mom always said she had no fears of my dad going into his second childhood… cuz he never left his first!
I look much younger than I am. I had a woman at work talk about her 29 yr old son and say oh well you arent that old yet. I politely told her I was 36 ( this was two years ago).
Better health care and better quality of food have made a world of difference in the last couple of generations. And I think as a society we have passed beyond that mind set "of putting away our toys and acting like adults). Of course my toy truck is a lot bigger and more expensive to maintain than my sons!
Whiterabbit, I was carded at 36! I just about jumped across the counter and HUGGED the poor girl! I was walking on air for the rest of the night.
Before turning 30, I had the irrational thought of, I’m leaving my 20’s, which means that my youth is fading fast, yet, at a podiatrist’s appointment I was at, she kept calling me kid, and talking about how young I was (I think she’s in her 50’s). On the one hand, being 30, I don’t like being called a kid, but on the other had, it felt so good that somebody thought of me as being so young.
after posting the other day, got in a discussion with the security guard here at work aobut age. she thoguht I was like 25, 28 max (her words) when I told her I was turning 34 in september, she commented that I was the same age as her dad. now, I dopn’t know her exact age, but we were talking about carding and all taht and she said she felt weird that she got carded after turning 21, but not before. now, the basic math for that means her dad stared way early with the family makin’. sorry for the slight hijack, but thought it was a funny story.
sorry for the misspellings, the darn thing would not let me preview for some reason 
Her dad is about 13 years older than her :eek:
Damn!