# Tiny Events that Make You Realize How Old You Are **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 16, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935 "2006-06-16T15:39:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/201 "2007-04-20T10:43:47Z")
[QUOTE=MacSpon] The first Doctor Who I remember was Patrick Troughton. [/QUOTE] Bah! Is that all you got, newbie? 🙂 I remember asking my grandad who the guy with the silly hat and black hair was and where MY Doctor (William Hartnell) had gone! mm ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/202 "2007-04-20T12:14:37Z")
I have explained to my children ( 6 and 7 at the time) that a manual typewriter is what you use to get on the internet in case of power outage. Embrace your inner twisted old person, I say! ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/203 "2007-04-20T12:32:09Z")
When I had to retire from the world of martial arts training because of arthritis. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/204 "2007-04-20T12:43:19Z")
[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest] I have explained to my children ( 6 and 7 at the time) that a manual typewriter is what you use to get on the internet in case of power outage. Embrace your inner twisted old person, I say! [/QUOTE] Conversation with a nine (NINE!) year old child in my office. Child: That’s really cool. Me: What’s cool? Child: Your typewriter. I only see a typewriter here. When you’re using it, you can _see_ what you typed. What the hell did I become an anarchronism? ---
**Author:** ![Lionne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Lionne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionne)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/205 "2007-04-20T16:54:48Z")
[QUOTE=SHAKES] Heh, my son was listening to some sort of remix of “Prett Woman” on the internet just yesterday. Let me tell ya’ he was quite amazed when I started singing the lyrics to the song. He was like “Wow Dad!! you like so-n-so band?” (I don’t recall the actual name of the band) To which I responded with: “Um…yyyeah… as a matter of fact I do!” Hey, it’s not very often my son finds me “cool” so I felt compelled to keep the lie alive!! [/QUOTE] Wow…this brings back a memory. It was the late 80’s; I was about 11. Remember the singer Tiffany? I loved her and played her tape over and over again. One day my mother comes into my room and starts singing along with “I Think We’re Alone Now”. I was way impressed. My mother…cool. Just like your son, I asked if she knew Tiffany. And just like you, she said, “Of course!” Now I know how she felt! What’s made me feel old? In the past month, two friends have had twins, one couple has gotten engaged, and another friend announced her pregnancy. What happened to my carefree group of wild friends? When did they get all family-y? ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/206 "2007-04-20T18:07:21Z")
[QUOTE=Oakminster] Wanna feel old? Go to a record store. The first clue to your advancing age is the fact that you think of it as a record store. I did this several years ago, searching for something my baby brother wanted for Christmas. Upon entering the store, I’m greeted by Young Thing, with rainbow colored hair, and various pieces of metal protuding through parts of her face–eyebrow, nose, lip, maybe another in her cheek. I didn’t say anything about it, thinking perhaps the child had been in some horrible accident at a wire factory or something. There is no one else in the store old enough to have voted more than once. I’m wandering around, struggling to think through the boom-boom bass of whatever the store music was, peering at my carefully transcribed list, looking for an album (another sign of age) by some band called Smashing Vegetables or some such. Young thing sees my plight, and helpfully offers “Sir, we have Sinatra and classical music in the back.”…I’m 35 at the time. Fortunately, Young Thing took pity on poor befuddled Oakie, and led me to the section I needed. After completeing the purchase, kinda felt like I needed to apply for social security. [/QUOTE] A masterful tale, good sir! For me it was last August when I got in front of my first class of Freshman Comp and asked them what year they were born. Then I realized that I am twenty years older than they are. I made a reference to something early 90’s (90210 or some such thing) and they all stared at me like a deer challenging a car. I’m not even thirty yet. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/207 "2007-04-20T18:17:50Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] I felt old for the first time when I had to explain to a child what a record album was. [/QUOTE] How 'bout a kid(24-year-old :eek: ) who says, “I know what a 45(gun) is, what is a 78?” ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/208 "2007-04-20T18:21:39Z")
I felt old a couple days ago when I tried to explain my daughter that a trip to the National Mall in Washington DC (she originally thought it was a big shopping mall!) and the Smithsonian musuems would be cool. Me: “They have science musuems, natural history museum with stuff like mammoths, a museum full of aircraft, and even a museum with stuff like, remember Happy Days, the Fonz’s jacket!” Her: “Who?” Arg. ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/209 "2007-04-20T18:24:07Z")
I used to work with a girl who was three or four years younger than me. She didn’t know anything about the majority of children’s shows or 1980s music that I listened to and watched when I was little. She also can’t remember when MTV’s main format was watching music videos interspersed occasionally by a VeeJay as if it were a visual form of the radio stations at the time. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935/210 "2007-04-20T18:53:38Z")
Good-bye, dear zombie thread. We shall miss you. Well, actually, not really. You’re all welcome to start a new thread and link to this one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-events-that-make-you-realize-how-old-you-are/360935.md?page=10)