Things that make me feel old.

Cliché become clichés because there's at least some truth in it, hackneyed as it might be. "You're only as old as you feel!" Most of the time I'm feeling young, mid 20's maybe. I'm actually a lot less self conscious than I was then, much more likely to spontaneously bust a move or sing in public than I would have ever allowed myself to in the mid 90's, But some times I feel every millisecond of my age (I'm 36 now). In order when they happened.

(age 20) I used to work at a dollar store(you know the kind where everything is $1) and a kid of about 11 came to the counter to buy one thing. I gave him his total "$1.05"
"But I thought everything was a dollar.", he said.
"There's sales tax."
He was flabbergasted, "Wow, I sure am disappointed!"
Then I unleashed this dusty favorite,"Well, if that's the most disappointed you'll ever be, you're lucky!"
Wow, I spotted him the nickel, by the way.

(age 25) I bought red pepper, even though it was a lot more expensive, specifically to add color to my salads.

(age 26) I was living in a de facto fraternity house, since everyone who lived there other than me belonged to the same frat. This meant that occasionally come home for work and find a few 19 year olds that I'd never met before hanging out in my living room.
I'd ignore them for the most part, but I had to interject one time one kid was talking about an unusual can of beer.
"It was all white and it just had 'beer' on it."
"Yeah, that was a generic beer", I said.
One of the other kids asked, "Generic?"
I then told them of the hallowed days, when vinyl "albums" were the norm and compact discs were an expensive luxury. Rick Springfield and Pat Benatar roamed like giants upon the Earth and FAME! we were going to live forever.

But it wasn’t all leg warmers and rainbow suspenders, we were going through some through some tough economic times. To fight this, companies introduced “generic” products, with no advertising or any product identification at all and passed the savings on to the consumers. The kids were beyond interested and I noticed that they began to form a semi circle around me, the wise old man. All that was was missing was the campfire.

(age 28) I had just gotten done mowing my lawn. I looked around and said to myself, “I could really use an edger.”

(age 33) Finding out that the guys in Outkast, who are practically lifetime achievement award recipients, were five years younger than me.

(today) On Gilmore Girls, Lorelai Gilmore has a daughter in college. Lauren Graham, who plays her, is only 3 years older than me.