### Author:  [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/1 "2006-05-17T21:34:34Z")
You can sell something you bought when you were 20, and call it “vintage”.
Share your sure signs of oldness.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/2 "2006-05-17T21:58:48Z")
When you don’t have to eat Rice Crispies to hear snap-crackle-pop in the morning.
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### Author:  [@Eligible\_for\_parole\_in\_2011](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eligible_for_parole_in_2011)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/3 "2006-05-17T22:00:58Z")
When you have to pause and consider where to put your arms and legs before getting up from a chair or bed.
When you are afraid to yawn because it sometimes puts a crimp in your neck or shooting pains in your jaw.
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### Author:  [@Mouse\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mouse_Maven)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/4 "2006-05-17T22:03:45Z")
When you remember when your school got **one** computer and it was a very big deal.
You can remember when cordless phones were first sold in stores and there were no cell phones.
You owned a black and white TV with the two dial knobs.
You know how to do long-division on paper because no one in your elementry school could afford a calculator.
You still have records and cassett tapes.
When you were a kid there were four kinds of drinks: Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up and root beer.
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### Author:  [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/5 "2006-05-17T22:04:22Z")
When you remember that you used to get gas for your car at a \*service \* station.
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/6 "2006-05-17T22:05:21Z")
When you look in the mirror and see your grandmother staring back at you…
-
\\*
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### Author:  [@Just1Lurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just1Lurk)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/7 "2006-05-17T22:09:36Z")
Billy Crystal has this bit about the time his son made him feel 90 years old by coming up to him and asking, “Dad, is it true Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”
I told this story to my 12-year-old niece. She said to me, “Paul McCartney was in a band called Wings?”
Talk about feeling old…
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### Author:  [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/8 "2006-05-17T22:17:21Z")
When Nirvana is oldies but goodies and anything before that was disco.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/9 "2006-05-17T22:33:07Z")
When your teenaged students don’t do anything for you, but you think some of their mothers are **hot**!
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slip\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slip_1)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/10 "2006-05-17T22:42:27Z")
When you’re trying to use a celebrity as an example for a class, and none of them know who Whitney Houston or Courtney Love is.
And I thought I was being hip or dope or with-it. :smack:
OH, and for the techies in the audience. Try talking about BBSs. And 1200 baud modems. Guaranteed blank stares.
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/11 "2006-05-17T22:55:24Z")
When you talk to 20 somethings who have no idea what your pop culture references mean. This is really sad when you’re only 30. ::sigh::
When you start saying the things your mother said to you as a kid that you swore you would never, ever say.
Mine aren’t gonna be really good, since I’m 30. These things still make me feel old though.
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/12 "2006-05-17T22:59:03Z")
Pah!
**Youngsters** …what do they know 😕
> [@Mouse\_Maven](#):
>
> When you remember when your school got one computer and it was a very big deal.
> You can remember when cordless phones were first sold in stores and there were no cell phones.
I remember when computers cost £500,000.
And how to type holes in punch cards.
I remember when telephone exchanges upgraded from Strowger.
> [@Just1Lurk](#):
>
> Billy Crystal has this bit about the time his son made him feel 90 years old by coming up to him and asking, “Dad, is it true Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”
I remember the Beatles meeting Helen Shapiro on ‘Top of the Pops’, then singing ‘I saw her standing there’. And they wore suits.
> [@Freudian\_Slip](#):
>
> When you’re trying to use a celebrity as an example for a class, and none of them know who Whitney Houston or Courtney Love is.
> OH, and for the techies in the audience. Try talking about BBSs. And 1200 baud modems. Guaranteed blank stares.
Who are these people? Musicians?
I remember buying ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ by Lonnie Donegan.
And Chubby Checker topping the charts with ‘Let’s twist again’.
Modems? The first Apple Mac to arrive in Britain caused a stir in my programming department…
Those were the days. 🆒
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### Author:  [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/13 "2006-05-17T22:59:20Z")
When you go home for the weekend and go to church with your mother and see an old high school classmate and she introduces you to her grandchildren! :eek: \*
\*This actually happened to me this past weekend.
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### Author:  [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/14 "2006-05-17T22:59:45Z")
When you seriously consider buying a pickup that has a top speed of 160 🆒
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### Author:  [@Amaranta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amaranta)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/15 "2006-05-17T23:05:19Z")
> [@Just1Lurk](#):
>
> Billy Crystal has this bit about the time his son made him feel 90 years old by coming up to him and asking, “Dad, is it true Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”
>
> I told this story to my 12-year-old niece. She said to me, “Paul McCartney was in a band called Wings?”
>
> Talk about feeling old…
I really don’t get this oft-repeated anecdote. Your niece not knowing this makes sense, it’s not like there’s a constant stream of TV shows and radio hours devoted to the history and impact of Wings. But the version with “My high school students didn’t even know Paul was in a band before Wings!” is crap. Seems everyone has a version of it. Who the hell hears of Wings before the Beatles? How is that even possible? How can someone hear the name “Paul McCartney” and not think of like, Abbey Road covers and stuff? And I guess someone who was growing up when Wings was popular maybe, maybe, maybe has an excuse, but it makes NO sense to me that a high school kid could think this. Someone young knowing who the Beatles were, or not knowing of either band, those two scenarios make sense. But knowing who Paul McCartney is, and that he was in a not-as-popular band with one main hit ten years before they were born, and NOT knowing he was in of the greatest bands in history, with many hit songs, that figure so prominently in pop culture, twenty years before they were born? So weird to me.
Sorry for the rant, like I said, I hear this story all the time and find it really, really strange. I was born in the mid eighties. My mamma raised me on classic rock. I was grooving to Revolver at the age of eight or so. And I didn’t even find out that Paul McCartney had been in another band called Wings until I was 15. Doesn’t this make far more sense?
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### Author:  [@hlanelee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlanelee)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/16 "2006-05-17T23:06:30Z")
When more than three people you went to high school with want to show you pictures of their grandchildren.
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### Author:  [@Jplacer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jplacer)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/17 "2006-05-17T23:11:50Z")
you stop to eat at a sit-down restaurant on a long road trip.
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### Author:  [@Bumbazine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bumbazine)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2006, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/18 "2006-05-17T23:56:55Z")
You get a card from your granddaughter and it’s her wedding announcement.
Yup. Got it right here!
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### Author:  [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/19 "2006-05-18T00:09:57Z")
> [@Bumbazine](#):
>
> You get a card from your granddaughter and it’s her wedding announcement.
>
> Yup. Got it right here!
May I have the envelope please. This year’s winner of the “I’m An Old Fart” contest goes to… 😃
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### Author:  [@Cherry2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cherry2000)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/357172/20 "2006-05-18T00:11:03Z")
You notice a good-looking guy and instead of thinking, “Damn, he’s hot” you think, "Damn…he’s _young_ ".
Oh well…I could always ask him if he’s seen “The Graduate” 😉
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