My children think I’m old. I mean the kind of old when someone asks you if the Dead Sea was only sick when you were born. Each morning the moment my feet hit the floor I feel as though I’ve made a gang of midgets with ball-pein hammers angry at me because everything hurts from the waist down. As I walk to the bathroom,I sound as if I’m walking on packing peanuts. I crack and pop louder than a bowl of Rice Krispies. I barely recognize the gray haired fellow in the mirror and I still shun those things that make me feel old. You know, black socks with sandals, scooters at Walmart, reading glasses on a chain around your neck. Must I continue with more examples?

Pondering my present circumstances I asked myself, “When did I go from hip to hip-replacement?” I think I missed a step somewhere along the way,  life is passing me far to quickly. I freely admit I’m getting older because my life has all the charisma of a Q-tip and I like it that way.  I  shun noisy restaurants at all costs. For example isn’t the restaurant Buffalo Wild Wings just a Chucky Cheese for grownups? With all the televisions blaring and shouting one must do to be heard, I leave feeling like the actor Don Knotts with Saint Vitus Dance. No, I love my sedate life. I even tap my feet to elevator music. I can’t deny it, it is a bit unnerving to listen to a remake of a song your parents forbid you to listen too now done in an *AARP format. There you are in the store shopping for corn pads and the announcer says with the voice of a hypnotic undertaker, “Here is Aerosmith performed by oboe and pipe organ, played at the pace of a defective metronome.

So driving one day, I was listening to one of my favorite stations on the radio, the 70’s channel. As my son sat next to me, I sang a familiar song that brought me back to my youth. In my mind I was once again a carefree young kid with dreams and not a care in the world. Halfway through the song, like a bucket of cold water poured on you while tanning in the backyard, my son said, “Can’t we listen to something else, because that song is soooooo old?” The first thought that came to my mind was, “Music has an expiration date?”

Well I learned one way to feel young. Next time I leave home listening to expired music, I’m leaving my kids behind!

* American Association of Retired People