Last week I wrote about the changes that come with the passing years. Moreover, those years pass faster the further we get from the neonatal unit.
(I’ve developed three more wrinkles since I sat down to write this. And they’re gray.)
If this talk is all Greek to you, count yourself lucky that you can worry about it tomorrow. If you are in the same boat, however, grab a bottle of liniment and find yourself in the following life changes:
• Nothing feels better than your own bed at night. For that reason, you don’t take as many trips as you once did.
• You can’t identify any songs on the Top 40, if they even still have a Top 40. You don’t know because you rarely listen to the radio. The songs all sound alike. If you can’t tune to Obituaries Over the Air, you turn off the radio and go dye your hair.
• Unless, that is, the songs are remakes of oldies. Then you can pick out every word and can remember who first recorded it and in what year and where you were the first time you heard it. Unfortunately, the oldies keep getting younger. You dread the day the 1990s are worshipped.
• Otherwise, your memory is … well, I’ll get back to this when it comes to me.
• Bands in a club play too loudly. But the TV is never quite loud enough.
• You begin to pay attention to the side-effect warnings of prescription medications on TV commercials.
• You begin growing hair in places that used to be bald. And you’re a woman. For men, ear hair can be brushed easier than trimmed.
• You find people you knew in the obituaries. All too often, you say, “He was my age.”
• Your food has changed. We avoid fat, cholesterol, sugar, gluten and MSG. You grew up on a farm, though, and the annual gluten crop was what kept you going.
• Yogurt. I will say no more.
• You read the paper and watch network TV news because you don’t trust the Internet to get it right.
• Sickness hangs on longer than before. The common cold is suddenly a life-threatening illness – at least in your mind. In the shower, you worry about falling and breaking your hip.
• You refuse to get another eye examination because your glasses got you through last year and you paid too much to go changing lenses now.
• You stop to look at every baby you see. They’re not quite as cute as your grandchildren, but more’s the reason to boost their self-esteem.
• You don’t feel flattered if you get carded when buying wine. You fall down laughing, but that is followed by: “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
To you whippersnappers out there: Tuesday is Groundhog Day, when the habits of a rodent determine the seasons. For you, anyway.
We of a certain age know better. There are always six more weeks of winter, no matter what that fat squirrel says.
Reach Glynn Moore at glynn.moore@augustachronicle.com.
