# You know you're getting old when... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 22, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930 "2011-07-22T01:48:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/41 "2011-07-22T20:42:55Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > Thank goodness I’m not old!! ::wags behind:: I’ll be hitting on you.. …right after this nap. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/42 "2011-07-22T20:45:41Z")
When your cousin’s son, who you remember holding as a baby, announces his engagement. ---
**Author:** ![kath94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/67e7ee/32.png) [@kath94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kath94)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/43 "2011-07-22T23:01:36Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > You turn on the oldies station on the radio and hear something you think of as current. This happens to me with REM all the time. I listen to an oldies station. I think of “oldies” as '50s & '60s. Now they’re '80s & '90s. WAIT! Those can’t be oldies! Those are the last albums I bought. Wait! Albums?!? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Finally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@Finally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finally)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/44 "2011-07-22T23:06:59Z")
I worked at home today and wore a ratty old tee shirt. It’s from WXRT in Chicago. (For those of you who remember, it says, “following will get you nowhere”). Anyway, it was a gift at my surprise 30th birthday party. It will be 19 years old on Tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/45 "2011-07-23T01:35:53Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > When you can’t trust a fart. So, so true. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/46 "2011-07-23T02:37:47Z")
When you are excited about your trip to Seattle so you can go to the Microsoft store, and visiting Kurt Cobain’s memorial is an afterthought (this only makes sense for 30-35 year olds). ---
**Author:** ![RoeCocoa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7feea3/32.png) [@RoeCocoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoeCocoa)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/47 "2011-07-23T06:07:35Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Or your youngest sun is grousing about passing 30 and feeling old. If you remember when the sun was only 30, you are kind of old. 😉 > [@kath94](#): > > Those can’t be oldies! Those are the last albums I bought. > > Wait! Albums?!? > > ☹ When I was 17, I talked to a 19-year-old who didn’t know about record albums. (We were at a pizza place with some album covers hanging on the wall; he wanted to know what was up with all of the funny square posters that said “Blood Sweat & Tears.”) I thought he was putting me on. When I realized he was serious, I felt old. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/48 "2011-07-23T13:50:50Z")
I’ve posted this before, but … When you see some 18-year old hardbody chick yakking with a woman obviously her Mom. And you catch yourself thinking “I’d do Mom in a heartbeat.” Now where did \*that \*come from? Also … Folks around here are real courteous. Going in and out of buildings it’s normal to hold doors open for strangers & to say “thank you” to folks who do. Everybody does it regardless of the respective ages. But when they call you Sir as they’re doing it, that stings a bit. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/49 "2011-07-23T14:13:38Z")
. . . when you’re reading a thread like this, and people half your age are complaining about how old they are. . . . when your parents’ generation has mostly died off, and now it’s your generation that sits around talking about your ailments, procedures and medications. . . . when your partner, who is 20 years younger than you, now has gray hair. . . . when the cousins you used to babysit for, are all middle-aged. . . . when you can’t decide which is a bigger problem, cataracts or glaucoma. . . . when you have fallen, and really can’t get up. . . . when everything in your body has either dried up or leaks. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/50 "2011-07-23T14:38:07Z")
I always thought ‘album’ meant a collection of something, whether pressed flowers in a scrapbook, vinyl records in a cardboard cover, or a bunch of songs in any format. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/51 "2011-07-23T15:33:01Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I always thought ‘album’ meant a collection of something, whether pressed flowers in a scrapbook, vinyl records in a cardboard cover, or a bunch of songs in any format. True enough in general. But at the advent of the CD, somehow the term never transferred. An album was originally a book for storing collections. Like a stamp album, or a pressed flower or photo album. When 78 RPM records were invented and sold in packages of 3 or 4 discs, those packages were called record albums by analogy. The term stuck (barely) when 33s came out and were typically single discs. Then the term “record album” got shortened to just “album”. Which came to mean “a single 33 RPM LP vinyl acoustic record.” Which a CD was not. And the folks pushing CDs really wanted all-new terms for an all-new recording medium. They wanted you to buy a new copy of your old music. Calling the new format an album would not have advanced that goal. For whatever reason, “disc” became the term for a CD recording. Even though LPs where just as disc-ish as CDs. English. The same word means a lot of different things, and different things in different eras. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/52 "2011-07-23T17:22:06Z")
My favorite nephew, who at some visceral level will always be “five-year old little Scotty” to me, now has a grey beard. The change took place over the past year or so. Made me feel old, but you know what? I like it. Hot damn. I made it to sixty. Might as well aim for seventy. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/53 "2011-07-23T17:24:59Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > (waggles eyebrows) Stop that! (You made me laugh.) . ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/54 "2011-07-23T18:15:58Z")
When you notice your child has gray hairs. ---
**Author:** ![Apollon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47774/32.png) [@Apollon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollon)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/55 "2011-07-23T19:45:25Z")
When the hairs in your eyebrows begin to look like pubic hair. When you inadvertently refer to Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, etc. as “Yugoslavs”. When you have to think when someone asks you your age. When your washing machine has more CPU power than your first computer. When you no longer listen to radio, because all it plays is crap to your ears. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/56 "2011-07-24T02:02:38Z")
1. Porn stars don’t come anywhere close to that rule about who is old enough to be attracted to without being creepy. 2. You can’t remember the rule anyway. Half your age plus seven? Something like that. 3. Grandkids learning to act tired of it all. 4. Bedtime is favorite time of day. ---
**Author:** ![NoiseBomb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/49beb7/32.png) [@NoiseBomb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoiseBomb)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/57 "2011-07-24T02:13:41Z")
I came across a car accident on the way to work last week. Directing traffic around it was what appeared to be a little boy in a fireman costume. Awwww. so cute, kind of like my nephew on Halloween… What do you mean he’s a real firefighter? He’s probably half my age… oooooh, right… ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/58 "2011-07-24T03:49:24Z")
I went to the bookstore, bought a book about Jimmy Page, and the clerk, who looked young enough to be my son, told me his grandparents went to a Led Zeppelin concert in 1972. Grandparents? It was just yesterday that all the old folks were telling me I’d go to Hell for listening to that Satanic metal music or whatever. Nowadays peoples’ grandparents were at Woodstock or the first Zep concert. ---
**Author:** ![Hockey\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@Hockey\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hockey_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/59 "2011-07-24T22:29:59Z")
Come back when you get your first gray pube. ☹ I’ve had gray hair since my mid twenties. I started getting gray eyebrow hairs last year. I didn’t really feel oooooooooold till I caught a glimpse of silver downstairs a few weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930/60 "2011-07-24T22:44:33Z")
Early this morning (3:30 AM) I was in a convenience store and while walking past a pair of young men, one dropped a quarter. I didn’t hesitate, I bent and scooped it up on the first bounce and handed it back to him. He thanked me, but I heard him whisper: wow, he was pretty quick for an old guy. (and the other guy said) Yeah, well money was involved. Damn young punks! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-youre-getting-old-when/589930.md?page=4)