The Oldination!
Posted on January 19, 2006 Posted by John Scalzi 11 Comments
Small signs from above that you’re moving right along through the demographic python: Your seven-year-old wearing a twenty-year-old t-shirt that you wore when you were sixteen. Yup, that’ll do it.
“Webb Day,” incidentally, being the inter-class competition my high school does every year. Our class won that year. Because we rock, you see. Indeed, our rockination so saturates the shirt that Athena can’t help but throw up the horns! Yeah, maybe I should wash that shirt. 20-year-old rockination does get a little gamy.
Another option: have a young teacher that you work with tell you that she was at Columbine High School when the shootings happened.
As a student.
A kid you baby sat while in college, and taught to catch by throwing things at his head (when he got tired of getting hit in the head he caught it), graduating from high school. Yup, that makes you feel spry!
musing with co-workers about seeing Star Wars on first theatrical release, and having them remind you that they were busy being conceived at the time…
Having friends confirm that they are too young to remember Cheers…
Heh. I’m really good at this game.
I think I was 18 when we salsa danced that one time, John. I will be 25 this summer. That makes ME feel old.
Starting to hear songs from your youth on the oldies stations…
My favourite is mentioning the Challenger explosion to 7th graders who give you a “huh?” look. *gets out her walker*
You still own a 20-year-old T-shirt you wore at 16?
Now that’s bohemian.
PS: I just looked…I still have a U2 shirt from the War tour! =high fives self=
Attending a 100 level Sociology class wearing the Tshirt bought during freshman year of Highschool – which was the same year most of my classmates were born (1987).
I keep getting older, but they all stay the same age.
I’m still sorta young. But for me, the public signs that I’m getting old are pretty much limited to seeing somebody on TV or in a movie thinking, “gee, they’re kinda cute” figuring out who they are through imdb, and realizing that even in the unlikely circumstance where it could happen… it would be entirely inappropriate to date them.
It’s far more common since I started watching Japanese TV (thanks Shareaza *mutters*) they don’t seem to do the “teenage characters should be portrayed by 25 year-old actors” thing that we do so much. (I tentatively believe this is entangled with breast size, but that’s a different discussion).
FWIW, in addition… being a dumb honky mostly surrounded by whites, browns and blacks, I’m not particularly adept at catching the age-cues most common in East Asia, so that just makes things worse.