Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Ring In The Old?

Troop and Pogo are having an "old off" over at Troop's place.

I'm famously old looking. I grew a beard at fifteen. And the beard started graying before I was 30.

I've never had a "guess-your-age" carny guess within 15 years of my age.

On New Years Eve Day I took my dad to lunch. He got the senior special. The punk kid taking our order said, "Will that be two?"

Bastard.

The real tragedy, I suppose, is that this isn't the first time this has happened. It's actually been years since the last time, tho'. I suppose it stings more the older you get....

17 comments:

  1. So how old are you?

    And I don't mean to dismiss the annoyance of going gray for men, but I think gray hair looks very nice on most men.

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  2. So were you buying alcohol for your middle school confreres? Has its benefits. Blake: The Real Life Benjamin Buttons.

    ~~~
    Darcy: I think women should allow gray hair more often and we should re-think what color hair actually makes people look old. I remember hearing that Strom Thurmond had died his hair so much that his head was actually orange when his hair was almost gone. Orange head and age spots...that'll age ya.

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  3. Hey...good point, Ruth Anne. I do actually love the gray haired look on some women, too.

    My gray hairs...not so much! But you inspire me to try to love them.
    Oh...who am I kidding? ;-)

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  4. An old off?

    That's what Simon tries to do on his free time when he hits on Ruth Gordon and Estelle Getty.

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  5. When we were working on the store this woman came up and asked if we were hiring. I said she had to talk to my wife as she had the final say as to who she wanted to work.

    So she comes in one day when I am not there and says "An elderly gentlemen said you were hiring." "Who?" "An elderly gentlemen with grey hair who was painting the wall outside." "That's my husband bitch."

    Needless to say she didn't get the job.

    But poor trooper's balls are busted about it to this very day.

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  6. Aww, Trooper. I saw your pic, and even in the Santa gig I wouldn't call you an elderly gentleman.

    Good for the wife for turning away that bubblehead.

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  7. I'd rather be called 'ring in the old' than have ring around the old collar. But that's just me.

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  8. I did not, in fact, by booze for my peers.

    With the beard and the receding hairline (which I first noticed when I was 15), and the fact that I talk much the same way I write--and with a much larger vocabulary and far stricter grammar back then--when I was amongst those who might've been inclined to use me in such a fashion, they all thought I was a narc.

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  9. Hey, Troop, so you actually said, "Talk to my wife" and this chick said, "the elderly gentleman"?

    That is ominously clueless.

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  10. Blake the narc. That's funny.

    Blake, I'm going to guess you are a wise-for- your age highly precocious 39 year old stud who can barely keep the babes away.

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  11. I was going to guess 37. I hope I didn't offend you by asking, blake!

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  12. No, not offended.

    I'd hate to spoil my "mystique" though.

    Heh.

    I do have a hell of a time keeping the babies away, though. They're all over me with their bodily fluids an--oh, babes...

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  13. Blake, just FYI: I left a comment on your programming blog (the Ahl post), but I don't know if you have those emailed to you. If you've already seen it, please ignore this comment. Or if you have not and do not want to see it, please ignore this comment.

    As for looking old, hey it could be embarassing the other way too. My dad looks significantly older than me, but perhaps not quite old enough to be my dad. When I was a teenager and we would go out to dinner, sometimes people would give us looks as though scandalized because they thought I was his date.

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  14. Oh, I can top that. My wife has the opposite affliction: She looks much younger than she is.

    Imagine looking 40 and walking around with a very pregnant 14-year-old on your arm.

    I'm lucky I didn't get lynched.

    (Responding on LCB now; I hadn't set up the thing right so I didn't see your comment.)

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  15. That's our Blake: An ageless enigma trapped within the mystique of a question mark's curve.

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  16. What a coinkydink, the question mark, and you...lookin' a little like the Riddler there, Meade.

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