My cousin and I were walking through a street fair one day and we heard Rapper’s Delight. We sang it. We knew all the words. My cousin stops abruptly and says, “Now everybody here knows how old we really are.”
I told a co-worker that I wanted a long braid so that I could put wooden balls at the end of it and knock somebody’s eye out, just like Lady Kunk-Fu. He said, “Wow, I didn’t think you were as old as I am!”
What have you said or done recently that “showed your age”?
I mean the macaroni’s soggy, the peas are mush, and the chicken tastes like wood…
I think what mostly shows my age is that I laugh now when I fart loudly in public…
We just got xm radio. On one of the stations Bobby Brown’s Don’t be Cruel came on while we were out and about. Hubby and I chair danced and sang very loudly.
The seven year old looked at us like we’d just sprouted second noses.
Yeah, we’re old. So what?
I was talking to a pal of mine about typing my college papers on a manual typewriter.
And if I’m in the car and the radio is on, I say “Who’s this?” a real lot.
Probably all my ranting and raving about those durned teeny-agers. I actually hear the phrase “Things were different when I was a kid…” coming out of my mouth waaaaay too often.
Going to buy food at the supermarket, complaining about how the prices of everything have gone up so much, and realizing that I’m comparing prices in my head to what I used to pay 20 years ago. Twenty freakin’ years. Hoo boy.
One of my first indicators of being not a youngster anymore - going on a day trip with a couple of young adults who were into 80’s music, and them getting frustrated with me because I knew (and was singing along to) every song they played. What - it’s not cool anymore if you realize that 30 somethings rocked out to those songs when they were new?
And, finally, realizing that my 20 year reunion from high school is two years away. Crap.
Oh, that reminds me, essvee - I learned to type on an electric (not electronic) typewriter. I remember what a huge pain in the ass getting a perfect page of typing was - you’d get almost to the bottom, make an error, and have to start all over again. There were only a few computers in my school by the time I graduated, and only the geekiest of the geeks had anything to do with them.
Remembering fondly the vanished days when Muzak was unobtrusive “elevator music” instead of headache-inducing Top 40 played at a ridiculous volume.
Clearly recalling the time before the great influx of immigrants, when the Washington, DC area still had white cabdrivers, convenience-store employees, gardeners and motel clerks.
Hearing “We are the world” or “Walk like an egyptian” and knowing all the words.
Realizing that you saw the first Star Wars in a theater when it was first released (1977), even if you were only 4 at the time.
Those pictures of you dressed as Princess Leia, and your brothers as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader for Halloween.
I know all the lyrics to Baby Got Back. Ohhhhh yeah.
Of course, sometimes I do things that make me sound even older – like referring to fifty cent pieces as King Johns. I get the blankest looks when I do that.
There exists a picture of me (at 5 or 6 years old) in a homemade Underdog costume.
I learned to type on a manual typewriter. (The “business students” got the electrics, as it was assumed that their typing prowess was more important; those of us on the “academic” track got whatever was left over.) I typed 40 wpm on a manual. As you might imagine, I find my computer keyboard ridiculously easy and quick.
While helping my daughter and her friends (13 yos) dye their hair odd colors in preparation for attending the Pop Disaster tour, I found it necessary to inform them that they “wouldn’t know what punk was if it bit them on the ass!” I did promise to shut up about it after that, though.
I tried to explain to my kids that Pepsi used to come in bottles and that you had to take the empty bottles back to the store. They answered " sure it did" then rolled their eyes. Then I told them if they did not belive me to call grandma and ask her, which then I had to tell them that phones used to have dials and not bottons. I didn’t try to explain black and white tv.
Hell, when I was born, they were still putting out LP’s!
(OK, so I’m only 20.)
Why, back in my day CDs were called Records, and you’d put 'em on a turntable not a Boombox. I recall fondly that some of my favorite albums were “Sing Along With Mitch” (Miller), “Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass”, and one by an upstart band called “The Beatles” (or something like that).
By crackey!
Listening to nothing but talk radio, anytime I’m in the car and slapping hands away if one of the kids so much as dares tries to put it on FM. Hell, naw. I don’t know that “music” and don’t want to hear it. So stop!
Getting really ticked if I hear, by some odd chance, a song like “AquaLung” and mentioning that Jethro Tull sang that…and one of my kids going, “Huh. Is that new? Never heard it.”
Preferring to sit at home on a weekend, parked in front of the computer or in bed with a book, instead of going out partying. I find myself making up lies when somebody asks me if I want to go do something on the weekends.
Trying to make sure I avoid lower necked, or even button-up shirts. Nobody needs to see my what used to be my throat. Same goes for long sleeved shirts. I will hunt them down even in summer. “Angel wings” only look good on angels.
Trying to remember it’s a compliment if my son tells me I’m phat. Got any idea how hard that is to do??? My automatic instinct is to slap the dog mess out of him.
Using expressions like “dog mess”.
And on LP’s…I didn’t even know you couldn’t get them anymore until I got laughed out of a music store about a year ago. I still don’t have a CD player, except in the car. You know…the one I only listen to talk radio on.
I caught myself using the phrase, “where Belk Jones was back before they built the mall”, a couple of days ago.
Another thing that makes me feel old is when I start telling a story, calculate the timeline and realize I’m talking about something that happened more than 20 years ago. I’ve been known to utter the words, “I reckon that was about 24 years ago.”
I found a grey hair in my beard. I chose the particular beard and mustache trimmer I did because it included an attachment for ear and nose hair.
This shows my age, but in a different way.
I saw SilkyThreat’s comment about the LPs and thought “LPs?”
I do know that you mean records, though… right?
In High School we tortured an adult advisor by filling balloons with punchies and then blowing them up and cramming them tightly into his sports car.
Punchies. You know, the detritus that gets punched out of computer punch cards?
Uhh…umm, non-hanging chads, dig it?
We got a new “classic” radio station recently. I was checking it out, and spent the first two hours naming every song within the first 30 seconds… and commenting (far too often) “I still have that album.”
Other than the fact that I have hot flashes and bad knees, you mean?
I know who Tony DeFranco and the Defranco Family are and still have their first album.
Oh!
And my very first record was Tina the Ballerina that I got the same year I got a Tina the Ballerina doll. Which my mother still has.