Getting Old

Back a few months ago I was teasing Nick. To fully understand you need to know that we live just around the corner from a large private high school. On weekends in the fall, when they have home football games, the entire neighborhood is overrun with cars. People will park anywhere they can find a place and walk over to the game. So, on one random Friday night I walked into our living room to see him with the TV on pause, the lights off, peaking out the blinds of the front window. I am all like, "What the heck are you doing??" and he says, "There are kids DRINKING in that car!" And I am all like, "So??" and he is like, "Sarah....the are DRINKING! In the CAR! In front of our house! They are high school students and they are DRINKING before the game!" This is when I crack up. Because...well...who is this man. He is freaking out because some high schoolers are drinking a little before a football game? He is peaking out the blinds at them. He is just so horrified with the entire idea of it all. And this starts the new tradition of me calling Nick an old man. It was just so... mature. So very grown up coming from the man I have been with since we were eighteen and nineteen.

So I have taken joy in Nick's old soul. How he was so disturbed by this underage drinking. And not just that, but by the garbage the kids leave in our yard. By the overall rowdiness of the high school students. I just picture him shaking his fists at the young whipper snappers to stay off his grass! To shake a cane at them maybe. I have known that I am clearly the one of the two of us that has stayed young at heart. I don't mind the high schoolers drinking or hanging out on our street corner. I remember that time. It is all harmless. I get it.

But then...Sunday happened. I was running to Panara to get some lunch and I swing to pull into an empty parking spot right in front. "How GREAT!" I think. Then I slam on my breaks. There is a table in the spot. A table from the patio. Along with four chairs. Two of which have two college girls sitting in them. In shorts. I am annoyed. I mean, why in the hell are they sitting in a perfectly good parking spot? I notice the line of the sun. They are just over it. They wanted to eat where it was warm. So I back out and find another spot. One much much further away.

As I walk into the store I cannot stop looking at the girls. Annoyed with the way they are oblivious to their surroundings. As I walk into the store I hear a disagreement. Two college aged guys are arguing with the manager. The manager is flustered. They guys are enjoying themselves. The manager says it is not safe to sit out there. It is not safe to leave the table in the parking lot. The store is liable. bla bla bla. The guys are obnoxious and I feel for the manager. Finally they leave the store and rejoin the girls at the table. Laughing and talking. Not moving. As I leave the store I get stuck behind a car. A car with a sorority sticker. It pulls up next to the table and blocks the intersection. And it stays there. IT STAYS THERE. And they laugh. And they talk. And they clearly think the entire situation is hilarious.

You all, I got so mad. I was mad for the manager. I was mad that I had to park so far away. I was mad that now I was stuck behind the idiots. And so I hatched a plan. A plan to write a letter to the girls sorority and complain. To tell them how obnoxious and rude these stupid college kids are being because...because...

and then it hit me. I am old too. I totally would have been the idiot in the parking lot in college. I would have been the kid drinking in the car in high school. And here we are. Annoyed. Thinking "How reckless!" , "How inconsiderate!" , "How immature!!". Right. So, I am officially a grown up now. I just hate to think how much I annoyed the thirty year olds around me when I was 18 and completely obnoxious...and of course thought I knew everything. Good Lord.

PS. I decided to NOT send the letter. Once I calmed down I decided I was definitely not THAT old. Maybe in twenty years I would take the time to actual lodge an official complaint. For now I will just complain to you all.