It’s truly disturbing when you start going to doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who are younger than you. The first time I worked directly for someone who was younger (only by a couple of years) it really threw me. (She wasn’t all that bright). My breast cancer surgeon was easily young enough to be my daughter with room to spare (but she was The Bomb-- lovely and oh-so-competent, God bless her.)
Oh yeah, and getting old does indeed suck.
A friend of mine just went to an ENT and I asked how he liked the doctor as I might need an ENT. He said “oh he was good but he looked like Doogie Howser.” Yeah, they all do now.
I know. I walk into some and I think, “Hell, I have shoes older than this person.” :rolleyes: OTOH, if I get one my age, I wonder if I’ve gotten a senile geezer. 
I just got my laptop back from Dell warranty service. It literally locks up after booting to the desktop for one minute.
The lil’wrekker is home from college til Jan.9th. Yay! Really I love being around her. I am an early Christmas shopper, so basically I am done. Except she wants to SHOP, bigtime!! So I have to face the crowds and lines and overworked clerks, anyway, because, I have the credit cards and the funds! And, “omgMomyoudontgetitmyclothesarealltrashandoutofstyle” So shopping we go, the mission tomarrow, new boots! I have her looking online right now, but I hold out little hope. I will be in shoe stores in the morning, I am sure.
I would be glad to have a good reliable doctor who was 20 or 30 years younger than me. My current PCP is only 4 years younger, and I dread when he retires. I don’t want to go through finding a new doctor again. I’m 68 and I’m tired of breaking in new people.
I’m a bit torn here, though basically I agree with you – I think the moral is: a lot of people are stupid, old OR young. But to me, the essence of “phone” is that it’s a contraction of “telephone”. What I have always required in my cellphones is the basic feature of having a hole to talk into, and another hole that you can hold up to your ear to hear the answer. In short, two holes, wirelesslessly and somehow magically connected to the whole wide world.
But in the modern era, when my old phone (featuring those useful two holes) became obsolete, my cellphone service provider sent me a smartphone. I never did get to the point that I felt it worthwhile to give up my grandfathered cheap voice-only plan, but on my home wireless I do find it very useful to have it enabled for my main email account and have it beep at me when an email arrives, and let me see what it’s about, because I’m not always at my computer but the phone is usually somewhere around. And I do use text messaging, which doesn’t depend on a data plan.
Totally on side with you here too, ThelmaLou. We spend much of our lives growing up with the idea that almost everyone – and certainly people in positions of authority – are older than we are. And suddenly there comes a time – and it really does happen very suddenly – where almost everyone is older than we are. I have no idea when it happened. It just did. For the most part the only people older than me now are politicians, many of them senile.
Yes, but so far, for me, it still beats the only known alternative.
Today, a little old lady angrily decreed the cash register made a mistake in addition.
I found a spare calculator and re-added everything. With the same result.
Little old lady: “I DON’T CARE! THEY’RE BOTH WRONG! NOW I HAVE TO GO TO CUSTOMER SERVICE AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”
Yes, please DO go to someone else. I am unable to change the nature of mathematics for you, little old lady.
I discovered that a colleague of mine from work is a flat-earth believer. That the entire planet sits on a shelf of ice (known as Antarctica). The ice is 200 feet tall at the edges, to keep everything from falling into space. So Antarctica is basically a dinner plate.
Speaking of space, not only have we never been to the moon, we’ve never been to space. Because it’s a vacuum, there’s no way to adjust your course of travel (never mind Newton’s Third Law).
All of the Space Shuttle explosions were staged. Christa McAuliffe is actually alive.
I have a friend who is a professor of astronomy at a college in Georgia (an offshoot of Georgia Tech). He was dumbfounded by the level of ignorance and misunderstanding displayed by my coworker.
My professor friend suggested that, as a demonstration of the “equal and opposite reaction,” Russell (the coworker) go stand on a sheet of ice and attempt to throw a bowling ball without slipping or sliding. No word on whether he’s tried it. I’m guessing not.
Yes, you are, with several years’ experience.
Ermmm… that should be read as “And suddenly there comes a time – and it really does happen very suddenly – where almost everyone is younger than we are.”
It should also be taken as evidence that as we get older, our brains get softer, and as dementia slowly creeps in, sometimes backwards things we get. I imagine that eventually the brain completely turns to a sort of inert jelly, and one sits in a corner with an imbecilic grin and a stream of drool running down one’s chin, and one becomes a Republican.
I remember laughing whenever my mother said something similar. She’d always warn that I’d never truly understand until I was her age.
I’m sorry I laughed, Ma. And now you’re somewhere probably laughing your head off at me right now.
I believe this is the root cause.
True, the principal function of a smartphone is still to serve as a telephone. Whether or not one cares to avail oneself of the myriad and vast marvels of a smartphone, one should at least learn how to turn off the damn ringer! I asked a friend of mine (older than me) why she didn’t just turn off the ringer when she goes into a meeting, and she said, “Mine won’t do that.” :smack: I said, “Honey, they ALL do that.”
Okay, one more gentle rant. It’s about this board. I wish people wouldn’t post links, especially to YouTube, without giving just a brief clue as to what their point is. I can’t easily watch YouTube on my kindle, which is where I do most of my SDMB posting. And even if I could, I’m not going to watch a 3-minute video with sound to get some point you could have made with a footnote to your post. I’m guessing savvy readers will follow the link, see what it is and immediately get the point without having to watch it. I’m not as up on pop culture as many are, and that’s my bad.
Likewise posting links to articles with no excerpt from the article to give the slightest idea what it’s about and why you’re posting it. Sometimes the headline is self-explanatory, but not always. Do a little extra work on your end to save the reader some work on his/her end, okay? P.S. Rick Kitchen gets very high marks in this area. He posts great article links, but always with a sentence telling you what it’s about. Thank you, RK! I usually follow your links because I trust you.
As for professionals being younger than me? Doesn’t bother me. I’m so used to it that seeing somebody my age or older is a shock, LOL.
I think what contributes to the age/looks/brain discrepancy is that, compared to previous generations, we’re in overall better health.
I see photos of my parents back when I was a kid and cannot believe how old they look.
My mother never “looked her age” thanks to genetics. I inherited that 
Nevertheless, I see this “old” when I look at a photo of her when she was my age now. I can’t describe it other than to say that I don’t seem to possess the same unless I’m blind to it?
I am an old lady that does not believe in taking any drugs, prescribed or otherwise. When the last doctor I saw took my vitals and asked me what meds I was taking, I said “None.” He said "A person our age cannot have these readings without taking medications. Okay…
When I told a co-worker I usually take the bus to the terminal in the next town and then walk back to work, her mouth fell open. “Every day?” Yes.
Yep. Last check up (with a new doc) he said it was unusual for a person to reach my current age without daily medications. Also said “good job, stay healthy”.
Going Homer one better: why in the name of Chthulu did I read the letters to the editor in the local paper today?
It’s a full-on moronic display from Ohio Right-to-Life, the Muslim Finger-Wagger (who must write daily, considering how much of his crap gets published), the guy who thinks we mustn’t discuss injustice anywhere in the world without slamming the U.S. too, and assorted other dreck.
If the trend continues, we’re going to outdo the letters section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer for across-the-political-spectrum dingbattery, and no one deserves that.
Well, back from the Big Rock. Boots have been purchased. Thank you jesus, that is over. Lil’wrekker is supremely happy! She’s trying get the girlfriends together for a night out. Gotta show off, ya know!
My big (little) rant is: why can’t you buy solid color Christmas wrapping paper? The only color I found was red, and it’s kind of a weird red. I want shiny jewel tones. No glitter or print. Hmmm??
