You can't control how others act. You can control how you react.



Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Feeling Old--The Nightmare at Walgreens

Okay, I have documented in this blog before that there are times when I feel old. My shopping experience in Walgreens the other day did not to lesson this feeling.

Let me set the scene: Walgreens on a weekday. Early morning. It's me and-I think- one other shopper in the store at the time.  I go to check out, and the total shows up as $19.93. I innocently move to retrieve my credit card from my wallet when I hear the young man behind the counter make a statement. I ask him, in all innocence, what he had said. This was his reply, "I said, '$19.93. I was two that year. Just a random fact. Another service offered at Walgreens.'"

I just looked at him. I really wasn't sure how to respond. Lots of responses raced through my head. The first was, "What the hell?!" quickly followed by, "Wow! 1993. I was a sophomore in college then!" These thoughts were quickly followed up with, "Was I stupid enough to bring up my age with a random person when I was 20?" But, my absolute favorite that morning was, "Oh s#$t! I could be his mother!"

I walked out of the store that morning knowing two things: 1) The rest of the day I would be laughing over that experience, and 2) I will never think of the year 1993 in the same way again.

“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.”



                                                                     Victor Hugo

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