Posted 4/30/2009

YOU KNOW YOU'RE GETTING OLD WHEN ...

... You're carrying a latte and about to open the door when a young woman bolts in front of you, opens the door and holds it open for you.

... You offer a five-foot-one businesswoman help in putting her suitcase into the overhead rack and she looks alarmed and says, "But, sir, it's really heavy."

... You drop your keys when leaving a board meeting and a woman on the board bends down and picks them up for you.

... You're driving twenty miles to Hannibal, Missouri for dinner despite the tornado warnings and your daughter rings you up on your cell phone and gives you hell for not staying home and going down to the basement.

... The waiter compliments you for having such an attractive daughter (who is really your wife).

... You go to your Northwestern fraternity reunion and nobody there knows who Otto Graham was, despite his having been Northwestern's only two-sport All-American.

... At the family reunion all your relatives tell you how good you look.

... You run into an old flame who hasn't weathered well and want to thank her profusely for turning down your marriage proposal.

... You run into that nice, shy girl you used to take the streetcar with on the way to school and find that she has turned into Bella Abzug.

... At your daughter's wedding, you say, "Hello, Karen" to Karen's adult daughter.

... Even middle-aged people address you as "Sir."

... The romantic New York restaurant where you were a regular when you were courting your wife shunts you away from the "romantic room" and puts you in a stuffy side parlor filled with septuagenarians.

... You ask for a "senior" ticket at the train station and the clerk doesn't even ask to see your driver's license or social security card.

... You're watching your grandson toddle unsteadily in his walker and your daughter says, "Timmy, Grandpa is going to have one someday too."

... You're having dinner with your 96-year-old mother at the retirement center and the waitress mistakes you for her husband.

... You've made the leap from having a "family doctor" to seeing a collection of seven specialists.

... All your doctors look like college kids.

... Thirty-year-olds all look like tenth graders.

... As you file in line toward the entryway to the cruise ship, the desperate vendor is yelling, "Señor! Señor! Señor!" But when you catch his eye, he yells, "Oh, Senator!"

... You're the only one of your friends who still has all his original body parts.

... Your treadmill mile reaches 23 minutes and straining.

... You look thinner from the rear than from the front.

... Suspenders become more useful than a belt.

... You're the only one in the restaurant wearing a coat and tie.

... Going to the bar means Starbucks and not Sports.

... An extra shot means espresso and not Jack Daniels.

... "Dinner at eight" becomes "the early bird special."

... You prefer cruises to nature hikes.

... You forget the last time you went jogging.

... It's too hard boosting the kayak on top of the SUV.

... Just getting down on the floor to wire your computer takes a half hour.

... Getting up again requires two pieces of furniture to hang on to.

... Senator Chris Dodd no longer looks old to you.

... The only senator who looks old is Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

... It becomes torture to get up from the modern low sofa your wife bought.

... Your drooping eyelids reduce your field of vision by fifty percent.

... Your eight-year-old grandson can throw a football further than you can.

... The President of the United States looks like a college freshman.

... You don't even notice this column has been printed in extra large type.

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