I wear this shirt to school all the time, so the kids are well aware that I know “The Vintage Twin” owners (who are, in fact, twins).
Kid: “But what does vintage mean?”
Me: “It means old. But valuable.”
Kid: “So the twins are old people?”
Me (laughing): “They’re 24!”
Kid (wide eyed): “Yikes– that IS old!”
And then I cried into my emoji sweatshirt.
Kid: “How come on my math sheet you wrote that I had to write the answer in hashtags?”
Me: “No, honey. Not hashtags. NUMBERS. You were supposed to write a matching NUMBER sentence.”
Kid: “But you wrote hashtag.”
Me: “Well, believe it or not, back in the olden days– the days of yore, if you will– THAT was a symbol for the word ‘number!'”
Kid (skeptical): “Well that’s just weird.”
Me (to kid): “Ohhhh, you got braces!”
Kid: (embarassed and unamused) “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Me: “Oh. Ok. They hurt?”
Kid: “Yes. And it’s hard to talk.”
Me: “I totally understand. If it makes you feel better–”
Kid: “Yeah, I know. You had braces in high school.”
Me: “Ok. Guess I’ve told that story before.”
Kid: “Yeah. A lot.”
Me: “Ok, well, I’m just saying, I can relate.”
Kid: “It would make me feel better if you had braces NOW….but it doesn’t make me feel better that you had them in high school. That was like…” (stops himself)
Me: “That was like what? A REALLY LONG TIME AGO? Is that what you were going to say?”
Kid: “Yeah. But then I realized.”
Me: “Realized what?”
Kid: “How sad that would make you.”
Good. They’re learning.
You know you’re old when you get off the plane in Mexico, encounter this welcome tiki bar, and all you can think is “I wish to god this was a Starbucks.” (Coincidentally, this is also how you know you’re American and the worst.)
You also know you’re old when the cab driver asks, “Have you been to Cancun before?” and your initial response is “Yes, not too long ago…” then you pause “Well…wait…let me see…” more pausing as you calculate “Umm…oh. Wow. It was 15 years ago.”
And then you cry into your Pepto-Bismol-stuffed carry-on.
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