Are You Old?

How many of these scenarios apply to you?

If you’re young, get that smirk off your face – you’ll be there sooner than you think, if not already flirting with some.

The Doctor Run

It’s not a dash – as if you could even do that. It’s more like a marathon, but it doesn’t end. You are constantly running to them. It’s a crowded field, and there’s really no prize. It requires lots of preparation and research. So what’s the training?

1. First, you have to get the details: What is that pain? Does it have a name?  
2. You do research–for me, that means googling.  
3. Then comes the match game–linking it up to a doctor that matches your insurance.
4. Trying to get an appointment.
5. Trying to get all of your questions answered in your allotted 15 minutes (and that doesn’t even give you fame).

The Shopping Count

You go to the store and buy a jar of tomato sauce.

1. When you come home to put it away, you find two jars already in your pantry.
2. You come home with 20 items, but you forgot to buy the item you needed at the store.

The Story Count

1. When my mother would start to tell my brother a story, he would put up an outstretched hand. The signal meant not only to stop, but also that he had already heard it five times. It’s not just me, my friend’s brother would say, “Rerun!”
2. You forget what story you are telling in the middle of telling it. Another example would be the line, “The reason old people are so concerned about the hereafter is that many times a day they walk into a room and say, ‘Now, what did I come in here after?’”

Lost and Found

These are everyday friends that disappear or are stolen by gremlins.

1. Where are your glasses? Either on top of your head or you are looking through them.
2. Where is your phone? Oh, it’s in your hand!
3. Where are your keys? Still in the car, in the door lock, at the bottom of the purse or in a pocket.
4. Where’s that item you just had in your hand?

Missed Important Events

1. Forgetting appointments, birthdays and anniversaries.
2. Turning appliances and lights off.
3. Going to an event on the wrong day/time.
4. Showing up at someone’s house when they don’t expect you.

Cooking

1. Forgetting to check the pantry/refrigerator for ingredients before deciding what to cook.
2. Did you put that ingredient in already?
3. Why hasn’t the oven reached 350° yet? Whoops! Wasn’t turned on.
4. Having to think about a recipe that you used to make routinely.
5. Those beautiful Pyrex mixing bowls and bakeware that were on your bridal registry are now too heavy to use. You buy plastic and aluminum throwaways at the dollar store.

Scheduling

1. Allowing three times as long to complete anything. Remembering whether you did it or not, and then remembering if it’s correct.
2. Ordering a driver for the wrong time.
3. You can’t find a pad of paper, and when you do, you can’t find the pen. Next, you lose the note. Then, you forget what you were going to write down.

Driving

1. Will the cops think you’re drunk because you can’t walk a straight line?
2. Why are all of those other cars passing you?
3. You remember where you’re going, but can’t remember how to get there.

Clothes

1. Didn’t these pants fit correctly a short while ago?
2. What are you going to do with all of those high heels that you’re never going to wear again?
3. You need to buy underwear with the days of the week imprinted on them so you’re sure what day it is.
4. Clothing with buttons is least desirable, followed by snaps and hooks.
5. Why can you get one leg in my pantyhose, but not the other?

Daily Activities

1. Throwing something in the garbage that you want.
2. Putting something clean in the laundry and wondering why you have the dirty one in your hand.
3. Come back to find you’ve never turned on the washing machine or dryer.
4. Checking the obituaries for familiar names (and hopefully not yours).

Body

1. What happened to that inch that you used to have?
2. Why is it now on your waist?
3. Why are your boobs now hiding everything?

Family

1. Why do your kids and grandkids roll their eyes at you (you can even hear it over the phone)?
2. Why can’t you understand the music they like?
3. You can’t remember relatives’ names or mix them up.

Miscellaneous

1. All of your favorite companies have been gobbled up by conglomerates.
2. Just as you learn to use a specific software, it gets updated (without you getting updated).
3. Filling out forms, especially the ones online.

Wonder and gratitude

How did you get here? Wasn’t it yesterday you were looking for college mates or just hours ago, pediatricians? Also, amazement that you are still able to read this and go through the process. There’s gratitude that you are just still here.

Feel free to add your own scenarios.

Please leave your comments below. 

Read more by Ada Mark Strausberg