Time in a bottle

I'm sure he meant well.

After all, he was only trying to save me some money. Still, when the teenage boy at the checkout counter offers you the senior discount, "if you happen to be 55 or older, ma'am," well, it can really ruin a 42-year-old's day.

Granted, the roots have been looking a little gray lately. My kind husband was thoughtful enough to point that out recently, at which point I was thoughtful enough to point out to him that the reason I hadn't visited the salon was to save money. And this was BEFORE he managed to smash his car into not one, but TWO stationary objects in the span of one week.

I briefly considered actually having the damage repaired. Then I found out that said repairs would cost at least $2,000. Our insurance deductible is $500, and who knows what a claim would do to our premiums? Getting the gray out of those roots is a bit over $100, including the haircut. A bargain by comparison.

So guess who has to keep driving around in a banged-up car? Hint: Not me.

So now the gray has been brought under control, but I'm still stewing a bit over that checkout-line conversation.

Granted, there was more going on than the gray hair. It was past midnight, for one thing, and I was exhausted from a long night at work. So there was that dark-circles-under-the-eyes thing going on.

Plus, I was limping, as I have been for months now because of a knee injury I got by taking classes I wasn't in shape for at our nearby Very Large Upscale Health Club. Memberships there are not cheap -- and neither is the physical therapy and medical treatment I started getting for that knee, once I finally admitted that it wasn't going to heal on its own and perhaps needed professional attention.

That brought on yet another age-related comment that I could have done without. One of the physicians, at the end of my fourth visit for evaluation of this problem, informed me that 10 years ago, she would have simply recommended a program of specific exercises to strengthen the supporting muscles of me knee. But now, injections were the first line of treatment.

I took this to mean that a miracle drug had developed in the past 10 years, which would now work in tandem with physical therapy to speed healing. Then she added, "after all, this knee is now 42, not 32."

Oh.

I really don't know why such things annoy me so much. You'd think I'd have started getting used to this soon after Elijah's birth. He was just a few months old, and I was still having residual ligament pain from his birth, the first time someone asked Jeff and I if we were "the proud parents or the proud grandparents."

Ouch. There's a new kind of pain!

I eventually was able to laugh that one off, since I had been with Jeff at the time. And he is -- let's just be blunt here -- a baby boomer. Obviously, there are no spring chickens left among THAT demographic.

But the next time it happened, it was just me with Elijah, in a checkout line (what IS it about checkout people? Aren't they taught MANNERS?).

"Your grandson is such a cutie!" the store employee beamed. Elijah wasn't even a year old at that point, which means I was still 37. I told myself that Mr. Overly Friendly Checkout Guy must have thought I was one of those REALLY young grandparents. Yes, that's it! Like on "Oprah," where I once saw a show featuring a woman who became a grandmother at the ripe old age of 28. (No, that's not a typo.)

But then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass of a display case, and I must admit, I could have done better that day. The baggy clothes, the hair, the aforementioned dark circles under the sleep-deprived eyes -- everything about me screamed "old."

Even more frightening, I was on my way to drop Elijah off with Jeff and head downtown to work, looking like something out of Night of the Living Dead. Real professional.

So, now that I might actually have to face being in the job market again (I'm still employed, but it's a tenuous employment at best), I have resolved to somehow look younger. Got the hair thing taken care of. I could stand to lose a few pounds, and I perhaps should try to project a little more pep.

Pep is really not my thing, but I'm determined to give it a try. Maybe I can buy it in a bottle.

I'll use my senior discount.