Who knew it was going to be today? I had always said that the day I walked around in shorts with black socks was the day that it would be time to put me in the retirement home. I thought with Elijah's birth I had bought a few more years, that keeping up with a toddler would somehow stop the aging process.
If I had been honest with myself I would have seen some of the warning signs. Hair sprouting wildly on my body everywhere but the top of my head. Cute 30-somethings saying how much I reminded them of their father. The fact that the only CDs I had bought the past few years were new releases of bands I had first heard in high school and college. (Of course, as Sarah pointed out, the idea of even buying CDs as opposed to downloading tunes shows how "out of it" I am.) Golfing with younger guys who, while complimenting me on a shot, used a voice I would have used years ago: the voice that may have said "nice shot," but really meant "let's tell the old guy how great it is he's even out here trying instead sitting at home drooling while watching "Dancing with the Stars." " Being out with Elijah and being told what a lovely grandchild I had.
But today was the day that I crossed the bridge to senility and couldn't get back. I had lost our iPod (without Sarah's prompting I still would be using a Walkman) at our gym, but was ecstatic when I found out that someone had turned one in and it appeared to be ours. When I got it a couple of days later (it was locked in a safe for the weekend) I tried to use it, but it wouldn't stay on. I took it home, looked at the manual and discovered that someone had locked it. I tried a variety of ways to unlock it, but none were successful. After reconfiguring it for the third time, and still having no success, I took it to the Apple store by my office.
When I explained to the employee (who looked all of 15) what had happened and how I couldn't get the iPod unlocked, he calmly looked at the bottom, pushed a switch, and presto, got it done. The conversation after this modern miracle went as follows:
"What did you do?"
"I moved the switch on the bottom to unlock. See, red means locked, green means unlocked. So I just pushed this switch here."
He said this to me with a look of pity that said, Old man, why don't you stick with one of those transistor radios with the single earplug and leave anything more modern than that to us.
I thanked him and left, happy that my iPod I thought was at first lost and then broken, was neither. I also knew that I would no doubt be the topic of conversation (ridicule?) for the employees that night -- the old guy who couldn't figure out how to use the button on the bottom of his iPod.
"Do you think he still has cassettes?"
"Cassettes? He probably has one of those 8-tracks my grandparents talk about."
Well, let them have their fun. While they're obsessing over the latest version of the iPhone, I will be working out to Bruce, the Stones, Bowie, the Beatles and any other golden oldie I have on my iPod that given day, making sure I have the strength and stamina to keep up with my 5-year-old bundle of energy.
The one who thinks his daddy can fix anything.
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