Signs You’re Getting Old

Written by Heather Foley

So the other day, I was sitting on the couch, minding my own business watching “The Challenge” on MTV, when it dawned on me that I don’t know who most of the jokers on the show are.  Then it dawned on me that I don’t know who they are because I’ve got the “olds.”  Yes, watching someone named Johnny Bananas made me realize that I’m not the spring chicken I once was (BTW, Mr. Bananas has to be getting a little long in the tooth himself).  Maybe now you’re thinking to yourself “Wait, am I old?” Sorry to say but you may be.  Since I don’t want you to have to suffer through the realization that if you made porn it would now be filed under “mature” the way I did, I decided I’d come up with a list of signs to tip you off if you too might be getting old.

Your knees crack so loud it concerns your coworkers.  The other day I bent down to put some paper in the copier, my knees cracked so loud three people yelled, “Oh my god was that your knees?”  Yes, yes it was now shut the hell up.

You run two steps and have to pee.  As you age, your bladder starts to lose all patience, and it friggin hates to get jostled around on a run.  The older we get, the more we understand what happened to Utta Pippig.

You have to decide between anti-aging and anti-acne.  Much like tastes great/less filling and you got your chocolate in my peanut butter/you got peanut butter in my chocolate before us, anti-acne/anti-aging is one of the great questions of our generation.  When you start having to decide if zit or wrinkles are public enemy number one you know you’re only a hop, skip, and a jump from buying your clothes from The Quacker Factory.

You make it a point to leave a bar before last call to avoid the cab rush.  Well, this is just plain good sense, and we all know good sense is a dead giveaway you’re getting old.

Blanche Devereaux looks younger every day.  Is it just me, or does Blanche look fab?  I swear those Golden Girls look younger and younger, because I’m getting older and older.

Your hangovers now last for three days.  Remember the good old when all you needed was a fountain coke to bounce back from a night of hard-core boozing?  Well, if you’re like me you now need a fountain coke, multiple days of resting in a cool dark room, and an IV drip of Pedialyte just because you had a glass or two of wine with dinner. 

When someone asks you how old you are you think, “You little a-hole”.  When you’re younger and someone asks you how old you are you tell them no problem, you don’t even think twice.  When someone asks me now, they get a lecture on how it’s rude to ask a woman her age before I tear up and say I’m very uncomfortable about my age and throw out multiple hints to tell me I look younger than I am.

You’ve ever said, “What’s a Reddit/The Could/Vine/Tumblr/Macklemore?”  Well maybe not Tumblr since that was just bought by Yahoo and Yahoo is old people friendly.  If you’ve ever had to pretend to know what something social media is, you’re probably getting old.

You’ve yelled at kids to get off your lawn or to turn down their rock and roll music.  Self-explanatory.  You’re also getting old if you keep a wiffle ball that was hit into your yard.

Now it might be a bit of a bummer to realize you’re getting old, but we need to try and stay positive.  Yes, the skin on our necks is starting to look like crepe paper, but before you know it we’ll qualify for the senior citizen discount at McDonalds and the movies, so we have that going for us.

Photo by Deborah McCarthy