Old age is a bitch

Does your spouse forget things? I'm not talking about birthdays or the day of your anniversary. I'm talking about physical things, like keys and glasses, or underwear and belts.

My spouse is famous, or infamous, for forgetting and losing sh*t. I can't tell you how many pairs of sunglasses he has lost or misplaced (because I forget the number). And guessing what he'll forget or lose on a trip has become a kind of running joke, to the point where I literally sit on our bed while he is packing his bag and ask him if he has packed [reels off list of items]. And he will smile at me and say in a slightly patronizing way, "Yes, J_____, I have [reels off list of item." And then, of course, we'll get to wherever and he will have forgotten something.

[Though, to be fair, when we got back from our trip to Canada last week, I realized I had left my brand-new cream-colored capri travel pants at one of our hotels, even though I always triple check our room before we leave. Fortunately, I was pretty sure where I had left them, and the hotel is mailing them back to me, albeit for $25. Still, cheaper than buying a new pair, which I did anyway.]

But yesterday the spouse topped himself. He didn't just forget to pack enough underwear or a belt. He forgot his entire suitcase. Which I discovered at six this morning, outside his office, in our driveway, when I opened the shades. He only discovered his error at 10 o'clock last night, twelve hours after he left our house, when he got to his Airbnb outside DC, where he had a big important meeting this morning -- and claims it was not his fault. He thought his colleague, who was driving, had put the suitcase in his trunk. Though I don't know how either of them could have missed the suitcase sitting in our driveway. (Old age is a bitch, man -- one that requires bifocals and hearing aids and cell phone reminders.)

ANYWAY...

Fortunately for the spouse, there was a 24-hour Walmart near his rental. So off he went, I'm not sure what time, and purchased a new wardrobe, along with a six-pack of beer, for the princely sum of $114.

Not bad, eh?

And now he will have a good story to tell at the meeting. Just hope he doesn't have to stay an extra night.

Signs you might be old

At what point does someone become "old"? Is "old" a number? A feeling? Does being a grandparent make you "old"? I remember as a kid thinking 16 was old -- and then that 21 and 25 were old. Ah, those were the days. 

I do not have a definitive answer to the question, When does one become 'old'? but here are 15 signs you may no longer be a spring chicken....

1. You say things like "no longer a spring chicken" and "Kids these days!" and "Can you read the menu?" and "What did you say?" regularly. 

2. The local "Oldies" station plays the music you grew up listening to.

3. You think gray hair looks distinguished.

4. Something (your knees, your back, your hip, your neck) always hurts.

5. Everyone you know has something that hurts.

6. You go out to dinner (or brunch) with friends and everyone is discussing what hurts (or who died).

7. You wonder where that extra flap of skin beneath your chin and/or that nose and ear hair came from.

8. You own at least two pairs of glasses -- and are constantly misplacing at least one pair (along with your keys). 

9. You write sh*t down, so you won't forget, and you still forget it (or you forget your list).

10. You drive a Buick... or a Lincoln... or a Cadillac.

11. You drive a Buick... or a Lincoln... or a Cadillac wearing a golfing cap (or tennis visor). 

12. You have AARP magazine in your bathroom.

13. You eat dinner before 6. 

14. You spend the winter in Florida (or would like to).

15. You eat dinner before 6 in Florida.

When did we get to be old?

At what point do you become "old"? Is there some age when you go from being "young" to "old"? Is it 40? 50? 60? 70?

Are you "old" when the music you listened to growing up can now only be found on "oldies" or "classic" or  "eighties and nineties" stations?

Do you become "old" when you have kids, or when your kids graduate from high school, or college -- or have kids themselves?

Ask a teenager, and she will tell you 30 is old -- heck 25. (And yes, I feel really old right now typing that. But, as I recall, when I was 16, I thought 30 was old.)

Is "old" a matter of age, or perspective?

The other day, I was with a fifty-something girlfriend (who doesn't seem old to me, or to her), and she complained that "there were all these old people" at the dance performance she went to. I asked her, "what do you mean by old people? Were they in their sixties? Their seventies? Older?"

"Mostly in their seventies," she replied.

So, to people in their fifties (and, I'm guessing, pretty much everyone, except for people in their seventies or older), 70 and over is old.

But is it just age that makes us old -- or is "old" an attitude or the state of your body?

I have always been, or had, an old soul, or felt that in terms of my emotional maturity, and my understanding of the world, I was older than my years. But over the past 10 (okay, 15) years, I felt like my body was quickly catching up.

I can hardly go a day without taking an over-the-counter pain killer, or several (for my almost always aching neck, head, and upper back/shoulder blades). And my eye doctor informs me that it's just a matter of time until I need bifocals. And let us not discuss the number of gray hairs that started sprouting on top of my head shortly after I turned 40.

[I often joke with the spouse, who is partially deaf, wears trifocals, has bad knees, and was prematurely gray, that any day now we're going to wind up in Florida, playing pinochle or gin with a bunch of other altacockers, complaining about our aching backs and other ailments.]

But do I feel old? Yes and no. I still think of or see myself as the person I was in my thirties in many ways -- and I'm skinnier and in better shape than I was in my teens or twenties. But then I pop another ibuprofen, or look at my 17-year-old daughter, and I say to myself, man, I feel old.

So what do you all think? Is there a birthday on which you become "old" -- or is "old" just a state of mind (or body)? Do you feel old? Let me know via a Comment.

Remember life before email?

Remember life before email? I do. Vaguely. As I recall, we used things called "pens" and "stationery" and "stamps" to communicate with each other over long distances, or used a quaint invention called "a telephone."

Seems so long ago, doesn't it? But it was really just 20 years ago (less) that email started to take off. (Though can you believe, AOL, which, yes, still exists -- I know! -- it going to be 30 this year?! And that there are some people who still have @aol.com email addresses? Hi Steven!)

At the beginning, many people had no idea how to use this newfangled technology, as BMW playfully reminds us in this fun/funny Super Bowl XLIX ad featuring Katie Couric and Bryant Gumble...



Actually, I know people, make that many people, who still don't understand how email works, or know how to properly use or manage it. But since some of them read this blog, I will not name names.

Now it is hard to imagine life without email.

(You know what else is hard to imagine? Going back to how we dressed and wore our hair in the 1990s. Though I hear animal prints are going to be big this spring!)

RELATED "BOY DO I FEEL OLD" ASIDE: While having dinner the other night, the spouse mentioned that my mother, while clearing out her apartment of over 40 years (for an upcoming, long overdue, renovation), happened upon a box of old 78s and 45s. To which our teenage daughter replied, "What are '78s' and '45s'?"

We asked her to guess. She had no clue. (Anyone else feeling incredibly old now? Granted, 78s were before my time, but I fondly remember 45s.) The spouse explained to her that they were types of records (which required another short explanation) -- and that 45s were the iTunes of their day, which I think is a rather brilliant description.

What happened to paying your dues?

[Alternate title: Hey you kids, get off my job!]

Back when I graduated from college, in the late 1980s, most of us college graduates felt lucky to get a job, any job, especially us liberal arts college graduates who wanted to go into advertising, or marketing, or public relations, or publishing.

We were THRILLED to get a job as an editorial assistant, or assistant media relations buyer, or marketing assistant -- heck even a receptionist or mail room clerk, if it meant we could get our foot in the door at some swanky advertising agency or magazine.

And the pay? Puh-lease. My first job, as an assistant editor (fact checker) at a New York magazine, didn't even come close to the cost of tuition at my private liberal arts school -- or allow me to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. But man was I happy to have gotten it, especially after not being able to even get an interview at any of the other places I had applied.

Indeed, all of my friends who were lucky enough to find jobs in NYC and Boston right after school, working for slave wages, living with their parents or several roommates, were thrilled to have a job. Sure, we would have liked to have made more money right out of school, but everyone knew you had to work your way up the corporate ladder -- pay your dues, and in five or seven or 10 years you would be a senior whatever, making a living wage. That's what people did back then.

How times have changed.

Today, actually I would argue since the mid-1990s, youth and chutzpah are rewarded and age and experience are seen as negatives -- with mothers who took a few years off to raise a family and fifty- and sixty-something men and women with years of experience making a fraction of what many (most?) of today's twenty-somethings are making, or commanding, and often being the first to be "downsized" (laid off, fired) when times get tough. Though this may have changed somewhat after the recession of 2008.

I blame it on the rise of the Internet -- the "dot com" phenomenon of the mid/late 1990s -- and social media, the "dot coms" of the mid/late 2000s.

Suddenly, we went from a society or culture that valued age and experience to one where technology was king, and any peasant who could create a dot.com, or website, or code, no matter how stupid or unprofitable the idea, was practically handed a bag of money -- and a big title.

Pity those poor slobs over 30 (like me, and pretty much everyone I knew) who had spent the last eight, or six, or however many years toiling away at this job or that, paying their dues, as they had been told they had to do to get ahead, who suddenly found themselves outranked or outpaid by hordes of twenty-somethings with no experience, no social skills, and in many cases no college degree but who could code or design a website.

Indeed, although I had a job at the time, as an editor, making a decent (for an editor) wage, I remember my husband saying to me that I should learn web design or coding -- and feeling too old at 30.

Though not that long after he made the suggestion, I left my job at the publishing company and started writing about technology.

Fast forward approximately 15 later.

I still write about technology. Only today, now in my 40s, I make 50 percent LESS (and that's being optimistic) than I did when I started out. Even though I have way more experience. But just try finding a decent-paying job when you are a forty-something. (Especially if it involves writing. Apparently a skill no longer deemed important by society.) And it's worse if you are older.

Btw, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Just talk to any forty- or fifty- or sixty-something who has had to look for a job the last 10 years or so, and he or she could probably tell you how hard it is -- and that they lost out to someone much younger. Or if they did find a job, how it paid much less than their last one -- and their boss is young enough to be their kid, or grandkid.

And don't get me going off about social media -- Twitter, YouTube, etc. -- and all of these so-called social media experts and consultants and YouTube stars. (Hey, you kids, get off my computer!)

Granted, age, or experience, or years on the job/at a company shouldn't be the only qualification for a job or a promotion, as it was when I first entered the work world. But surely age and experience should count for something, at least as much as having a cat with a popular YouTube channel or Twitter feed, right?

You might be an old fart if...

* You keep people's names, phone numbers, and addresses in a Rolodex

* You use a paper engagement calendar

* You still pay bills using checks

* You listen to music on a turntable (or a CD player)

* Your camera requires film

* Your phone has a cord, which curls

* You have used the phrases "Kids these days!" or "Back when I was a kid/growing up..." in the last 72 hours

* Drinking alcohol gives you an immediate headache

* You fall asleep before your kids

* You prefer your movies in 2D

* Your idea of "doing drugs" involves taking two Aleve (or antacids or heartburn medicine)

* You quote lines from The Flintstones and/or The Brady Bunch (or pick your 1960s or 1970s sitcom)

* Your email address contains the letters "aol"

* You still refer to Russia as The Soviet Union

* You own a leisure suit

* When it snows your first thought is "my back already hurts at thought of shoveling all that"