# In which I am made to feel old **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 1, 2004, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469 "2004-12-01T08:23:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/21 "2004-12-01T16:45:27Z")
Talking of music - I mentioned 8-tracks on another board and the younger element were all amazed. Not only had they never seen one, most of them hadn’t even heard of one. Odeariedearieme. That wasn’t the most memorable “old day” I’ve ever had, though; that happened about three years ago when one of the young chaps in our office said that he thought Kylie Minogue wasn’t in bad shape…for an old girl. As the diminutive Aussie and I are the same age; that was the day I realised I was an old girl. Well, in the eyes of the kiddiwinks, anyway!!! ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/22 "2004-12-01T17:01:54Z")
> [@Dolores Reborn](#): > > Definitely. If I inferred correctly, Guns and Roses sang Sweet Child of Mine? I barely know any music after 1980. Except new country music. 😉 > > I’m an old classic rocker… I was born in 1958. I remember drive-ins! I remember record players! I remember 45’s! I remember lots of stuff that I can’t think of right now! > > Damn, I’m getting old. I was born in 1961, but I prefer to think of myself as not “old,” but eternal, like She Who Must Be Obeyed (H. Rider Haggard’s deathless queen, not Rumpole’s wife.) ---
**Author:** ![pokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@pokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pokey)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/23 "2004-12-01T17:02:43Z")
The other day I was at the record store and they had a 2 for whatever deal and I had my one, and the kid, about 17 or 18 was trying to help me find another one. He kept holding up things, and I kept making yuck faces. After a while, he got tired of it and started to assume I would not like things, so he holds up the Streets and then he said, “I guess this is too new for you.” 😕 I’m 33 so it’s natural for him to think I’m old, but it’s not like I get bewildered and disoriented when I hear something recorded after 1995! This is music for young people, granny! But on the other hand, he was right, I don’t know what the fuck kind of whippersnapper shit that was. And I probably looked bewildered when he held it up. So I can’t fault him. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/24 "2004-12-01T17:06:46Z")
> [@Scribble](#): > > I get to feel old all the time, thanks to my 18-year-old students. > > I’ve learned not to make Monty Python jokes in class, because my students don’t get them. In fact, most of them don’t know who or what Monty Python is. Most of them don’t know about Rocky and Bullwinkle, and many of them remember seeing Ren and Stimpy “when they were little kids.” > > I turn 31 this January (the horror! The horror!), and I’m feeling pretty ancient. Same here, **Scribble**. But I’ve got 15 years on you, so it is even worse. The things they reference as influences when they were growing up are things that were “too young” for me to be interested in at the time. I have a car older than my students, and it isn’t even a “classic!” :eek: OK, granted it isn’t my primary vehicle. It’s a spare in the garage. It doesn’t matter. The point is still valid. Leave me alone! ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/25 "2004-12-01T17:15:16Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > I was born in 1961, but I prefer to think of myself as not “old,” but eternal, like She Who Must Be Obeyed (H. Rider Haggard’s deathless queen, not Rumpole’s wife.) I know plenty of deathless queens, hon, and you ain’t one… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/26 "2004-12-01T17:21:19Z")
> [@Dolores Reborn](#): > > I barely know any music after 1980. Except new country music. 😉 I was at the laundromat this morning, where they play a radio station that advertises istself as “ **Today’s best music**.” In between the commercials, traffic reports, and prank phone calls, I heard exactly two songs. The first was a remake of “I’m a Believer.” The second was a remake of “American Woman.” Everything old is new again. Except us, dammit. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/27 "2004-12-01T17:27:46Z")
> [@Biffy the Elephant Shrew](#): > > I was at the laundromat this morning, where they play a radio station that advertises istself as “ **Today’s best music**.” In between the commercials, traffic reports, and prank phone calls, I heard exactly two songs. The first was a remake of “I’m a Believer.” The second was a remake of “American Woman.” > > Everything old is new again. > > Except us, dammit. Ah, but the difference is in the coolness factor, modified for time passed. To us (I’m 33), the Monkees had some good songs. To THEM (the young’uns), the Monkees is a stupid name for a group (but Smashmouth, apparently, isn’t). To us, the Guess Who is kind of clever and they make good music. To THEM, the Guess Who is another stupid name for a group, and Lenny Kravitz (who sounds from the name as if he should look like Allen Sherman rather than a damn GOD) is da bomb. (How does someone half of whose genes come from Roxie Fucking Roker look that good, anyway?) ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/28 "2004-12-01T17:46:12Z")
It’s not how old you are. It’s how you are old. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/29 "2004-12-01T18:00:38Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > So I’m at a poker game earlier tonight and someone folded a 9-5 and called it by its nickname, the “Dolly Parton.” Someone hummed a few bars of the 9 to 5 theme song and someone else asked if anyone had ever seen the movie. I mentioned that I had watched it not too long ago on cable, and that I had seen it in the theatre when it first came out. > > You’d have thought I’d said I was at the Crucifixion. > > They were amazed, _amazed_ that someone had seen the movie in the theatre. “Didn’t that come out in, like, the _80s_?!” > > Durn whippersnappers. You shoulda been there the time I informed a group of young whippersnappers that Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” was a cover of a Dolly Parton song. They were _flabbergasted whippersnappers_. And that was about ten fucking years ago! ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/30 "2004-12-01T18:01:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Debbie just hit the wall > She never had it all > One prozac a day > Husband’s a C.P.A. > Here dreams went out the door > Once she turned 24 > Only been with one man > What happened to her plans > She was gonna be an actress > She was gonna be a star > She was gonna shake that ass > On the hood of Whitesnake’s car > Now her SUV has become the enemy > Looks at her average life > Nothing has been alright… since > > Bruce Springsteen, Madonna > Way before Nirvana there was U2 > And Blondie and music still on MTV > Her 2 kids in high school > They tell her that she’s uncool > Cause she’s still preoccupied > With 1985 > > She hates time / make it stop > When did Motley Crue become classic rock > She hates time / make it stop [“1985” by SR-71](http://www.lyricsdomain.com/19/sr71/1985.html). My wife and I laughed and laughed and laughed when we first heard it on the radio. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/31 "2004-12-01T18:20:25Z")
I went back to school to get a degree in engineering when I was 31 or so. I was a lot older than my fellow students (engineering students in particular seem to go right through, there were more non-traditional students in other colleges). Anyway, this time around, I decided to do all the school stuff I skipped out on when I was younger so I became an officer in Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. We had an officer’s meeting and wound up writing down out birthdays for some reason. I just wrote the month, day, and put “older than y’all”. Todd sees that and says “hey, I heard you were born in the _Sixties_” as if that was the most incredible thing he had ever heard. :rolleyes: Yeah, I felt _really, really_ old at that moment. (BTW, he didn’t mean it maliciously, he’s a sweet guy, but geez…) ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/32 "2004-12-01T18:45:45Z")
> [@John Corrado](#): > > “Sweet Child of Mine.” > > No! No, classic rock is for stuff made by the baby boomers before I was born! It does not include _songs that were popular when I was a senior in high school_! I’m not sure which is more disturbing: That songs from High School are one step from the oldies station, or that “Sweet Child of Mine” is considered a classic. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/33 "2004-12-01T18:46:18Z")
This is a daily occurance for me. I still remember the very first time it happened, though. It was about a month or so after I turned 22. I had no job, no prospects, and no idea how I was going to move out of parents’ house. Mostly what I did all day was drive around and look at stores that had cool stuff I couldn’t afford to buy. So I’m sitting in the Bookstar reading a magazine profile about Alanis Morissette. This was right after she became an “overnight” superstar with Jagged Little Pill. The reporter goes with Alanis to her birthday party. I’m happily reading along when I see that it’s her _twenty-first_ birthday, meaning that while I’m at complete loose ends, here’s this girl who is not only an international superstar, she’s practically a year younger than I am! i’ve never really receovered. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/34 "2004-12-01T18:46:39Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > [“1985” by SR-71](http://www.lyricsdomain.com/19/sr71/1985.html). My wife and I laughed and laughed and laughed when we first heard it on the radio. > > Enjoy, > Steven They got the bank wrong. I’ts _Bowling for Soup_ and the video is even funnier than the song. Trust me. Justin, who turned 30 yesterday. :😭: ---
**Author:** ![davmilasav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@davmilasav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davmilasav)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/35 "2004-12-01T18:51:18Z")
My “Oh, God, they think I’m ancient” moment happened when I told one of my coworkers how cool the Bicentennial was. He had never heard of it. :eek: I further freaked him out when I told him I slipped into the world before man landed on the moon! (Okay, only by 4 months but still…) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/36 "2004-12-01T18:56:35Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > I’m happily reading along when I see that it’s her _twenty-first_ birthday, meaning that while I’m at complete loose ends, here’s this girl who is not only an international superstar, she’s practically a year younger than I am! i’ve never really receovered. “It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.” --Tom Lehrer Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/37 "2004-12-01T19:15:43Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > They got the bank wrong. I’ts _Bowling for Soup_ and the video is even funnier than the song. Trust me. > > Justin, who turned 30 yesterday. :😭: Cool, I had been looking for SR-71’s CD’s with the song on it and hadn’t been able to find them. I guess that would explain why 🙂 Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/38 "2004-12-01T19:35:21Z")
I also forgot to add that this fall alone, I have been seeing a serious increase in silver/gray hair in my head. Three hairs in my bangs are now growing out silver, and as my bangs are less than an inch long, they are very prominent, also elsewhere my 1 1/2 foot long hair has 1 1/2 foot long silver streaks in it! I’m starting to kind of like it though, I wouldn’t mind it so much as streaks. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/39 "2004-12-01T19:45:36Z")
> [@Elenia28](#): > > I also forgot to add that this fall alone, I have been seeing a serious increase in silver/gray hair in my head. Three hairs in my bangs are now growing out silver, and as my bangs are less than an inch long, they are very prominent, also elsewhere my 1 1/2 foot long hair has 1 1/2 foot long silver streaks in it! I’m starting to kind of like it though, I wouldn’t mind it so much as streaks. There’s a woman here where I work who has gorgeous silver hair down to about her waist. She’s only in her 40s, from what I can tell, and it’s absolutely beautiful. I keep waiting to go distinguished like Phil Donahue, but I just keep getting this Reed Richards bleached temples look… ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469/40 "2004-12-01T20:21:04Z")
So far my grey (head) hair is pretty scattershot (none below the waist so far, but I do have some on my chest which as I find them they get plucked) and I have a lot of red in my hair, so i can still get away with it looking like “highlights” as long as it’s short enough. I did get carded buying a bottle of vodka at the grocery on Sunday, but I’m reasonably sure that was just _pro forma_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-am-made-to-feel-old/277469.md?page=3)