I think it’s pretty common, as we get into late middle age and full-on old age, to have a set “mental age”, an age that we feel like we are inside, even though we’re perfectly aware of how old we actually are.
I’m 58, no spring chicken, but I’d say my “mental age” is somewhere in my early 30s- old enough to have full adult responsibilities, but still young enough to be fully in my prime, and to think like a younger person. When I catch my reflection in a window or something I always think “who’s that old guy?!?” for a split second.
And yet…I sometimes find myself doing and saying things I would have imagined only ‘old people’ do. And of course, that always means ‘at least 10 years older than me’. For example, describing myself as “no spring chicken” in the paragraph above
Just recently I found myself using the phrase “that’s neither here nor there”. I often make an exaggerated groan whenever I sit down or get up from a sitting position- which isn’t really necessary- my aging joints and bones aren’t quite that creaky. At least, I haven’t yet yelled at any kids to get off my lawn…yet.
How about you all? Many of us here are past the ‘18 to 54’ demographic; we may feel like we are still there, but then our bodies and minds sometime betray us…
That triggered a memory- when I was a kid, my Grandma and Grandpa owned a talkative parakeet. My Grandpa had a smoker’s cough. After he died the parakeet would make a coughing sound that was eerily exactly like my Grandpa’s. It was downright spooky.
If you’re saying it as “neether,” you’re still a young’un. “N ī ther,” you’re old as dirt.
I’ve slipped into the old fart habit of calling women “sweetheart,” “hon,” “dearie,” what have you. It seems to go over better than “ma’am,” “Miss,” “Missus.”
I am only 55 and I am already reshuffling things in the dishwasher before running it.
As for the groaning when sitting down, we picked-up the whole “Did you hear that?” from the “Becoming your parents” TV ads (at 0:15), when someone does that.
Here’s the flip side – I’m 62 and I know if i ran into one of my old school teachers, I’d still be calling them, “Mr. Scienceteacher,” or, “Mrs. Englishteacher,” instead of Bill or Tim. Some of these people were only 15 years older than me, so the age gap now is practically non-existent. But still, you mess with manners at your own peril.
Oh yeah, I had forgotten there was a much more recent comedic reference out there than the one I was thinking of-- Paul Reiser in “Mad about You” complaining to Helen Hunt how he always had to groan when sitting in a chair, like his dad used to do. And that was the old, non-reboot version.
BTW- nice online-only extra in that YouTube version of the commercial- at the end Dr. Rick says “aaalright… who knows what the Subscribe button does? It gives us more videos about Parenthamorphosis”.
I returned to school at age 29 and worked my way through a BA and MA. I ended up getting a faculty teaching job at the community college where I first studied after returning. So now many of my undergrad profs are my colleagues, and since I returned to school late many of my profs were my own age or younger. Faculty and staff, of course, refer to each other using first names but not calling them Prof. Soandso or Dr. Soandso is something I just can’t do. It makes for weird meetings.
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
I’ve been doing the groan thing for a long time but maybe less since I’ve lost some of my paunch. Really, you lose a few pounds and getting up and sitting down become less of an ordeal.
Insofar as vocabulary, I dunno, maybe responding (appropriately) with something like “Oh, my,” just to keep the conversational ball rolling.
Certainly, it took a while before I regularly found myself saying, “When I was your age…”
I find that it’s not so much that I’ve started using phrases that I associate with older people, as that I’m still using phrases that younger people don’t use any more.
I should nip this in the bud (<–an old-ism): I don’t snap my fingers in a diner and holler, “Sweetheart, some service?” More like, I see a waitress having a hard day and I compliment her on the service or the food (or her tat) and she brings me an extra couple hushpuppies and I gush, “Aw, you’re a sweetheart.”
Of course, where I come from, everybody is Hon – men, women, kids, dogs, file cabinets… .
Oh, I’ve got a remedy for that. Get your hair cut by the screwball who chopped mine down to a quarter inch the other day. The last time it was this short, I think I was seven years old! It was my first (and last) visit to this barber, just because it’s within walking distance of my apartment. As soon as I sat down, he ran the razor straight down the middle, from front to back, and said he thought Trump was the victim of election rigging. I bit my tongue and said I’d rather talk about something else. He turned to local politics, accusing a mainstream figure of being a communist! So, there I was, looking like I’d been run over by a lawnmower and with all the rest of my hair uncut, so I just went silent and asked him to finish the job.
Hey, there’s another old-personism: launching into anecdotes/rants at inappropriate moments.
