You know you are getting old when:

[earl]

I'm old enough to still remember the very first episodes of....

When I was a youngin, I watched those. Liked the Addams Family better than the Munster however.

 

[Zombie_61]

When I was a youngin, I watched those. Liked the Addams Family better than the Munster however.

The Addams Family was always better than The Munsters.

 

[Tiki Tom]

When my daughter went through a brief goth phase (thankfully over) and wore nothing but black, I used to call her “cara Mia”. Nobody got the Adam’s Family reference. Even worse, one mom thought it was very sweet.

 

[Trenchfriend]

When you finally tried out these "Energy/Booster/Refresh etc... day creams" for your face, in the cute little pump dispensers, in the last months.

And you LIKE it!!

 

[green papaya]

when you visit the senior citizen care home and they try to stop you from leaving and you have to explain your just visiting a relative.

 

[navetsea]

been wearing minus glasses since junior highschool, and I have no problem drawing my comic page wearing it, but lately i find myself pushing it down to look over my glasses when drawing since I lose confidence in pinpointing my pencil, then I see a lot better without my minus glasses over close range, so I need to take off the glasses to draw comfortably and yet have to reach it when i look up to watch something interesting on TV, what a new found annoyance.

 

[GHT]

been wearing minus glasses since junior highschool, and I have no problem drawing my comic page wearing it, but lately i find myself pushing it down to look over my glasses when drawing since I lose confidence in pinpointing my pencil, then I see a lot better without my minus glasses, then I need to take of the glasses to draw comfortably and have to reach it to watch TV, what a new found annoyance.

What you have is a very common, short sighted prescription. At 25, I had much the same, reading was fine without spectacles, but any further than six feet away, the focus wasn't so sharp. My optician told me that when I reach my fifties, my body shrinks, only microscopically, but it's enough to bring my eyesight back into perfect focus. What she didn't tell me was that after a period of not needing glasses for either distance or reading, the shinkage must have been a little more than microscopic, I now need reading glasses and before too long, I shall probably need distance glasses too. Getting old, who called it the golden years?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Something similar happened. There was a brief little window about ten years ago where my eyes seemed to be improving, but it didn't last long, and now they're worse than ever. They've never been very good, but now I've forgotten what clear vision even looked like. But you do learn to compensate -- when I see double, I know that the image to the bottom left is the real one.

 

[Trenchfriend]

When loitering teens greet you with "Guten Tag!", while you're wearing a baseball cap, a sporty shirt and shorts. Then you know, it's game over.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Yes to the eyesight remarks and yes to the young people showing unwarranted respect (in Vienna kids still do that.) I am slowly learning to play it to my advantage. I never used to be able to bluff people or get my way purely because of my age and experience... now I find that I can play that card and get away with it. Also, to “own” a recent big round birthday (60), I decided to grow a beard. Having a gray beard definitely helps in the faking gravitas and dignity game. Should have done it years ago. I try to use my new powers for good instead of evil.

 

[tonyb]

... the shows you watch on TV are full of ads for prescription medicines that treat conditions afflicting the elderly, mostly.

 

[tonyb]

Something similar happened. There was a brief little window about ten years ago where my eyes seemed to be improving, but it didn't last long, and now they're worse than ever. They've never been very good, but now I've forgotten what clear vision even looked like. But you do learn to compensate -- when I see double, I know that the image to the bottom left is the real one.

I had cataract surgery on my left eye going back, gosh, 16(?) years ago. I now see so well out of that eye that I’m legal to drive without corrective lenses. But I wear bifocals anyway, because I see better both near and far with them than without them, and because I’ve long grown accustomed to having windshields over my peepers.

I have floaters, which my brain has learned to ignore, pretty much. And I’ve noted that with some corrections, especially when I’m new to them, horizontal lines (a wide set of stairs, for instance) bend down from the middle toward the sides. You get used to it.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I have floaters, which my brain has learned to ignore, pretty much. And I’ve noted that with some corrections, especially when I’m new to them, horizontal lines (a wide set of stairs, for instance) bend down from the middle toward the sides. You get used to it.

I had a similar problem several years ago when my optometrist's office replaced the lenses in my glasses with ones with a slightly stronger prescription. I got home, and while looking at the screen on my laptop it was suddenly wider at the top than at the bottom. Since this was only noticeable while wearing my new glasses/lenses, I returned to the optometrist and explained the problem. Apparently, for some people the type of plastic they manufacture the lenses from causes this visual distortion, so the solution was to have the lenses re-made with a different type of plastic and to put a note in my medical records mentioning this requirement. So far that solution has eliminated the problem.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What doesn't help with me is that any kind of visual weirdness sets off my migraines -- that ruled out bifocals right out of the gate, and any time I have any kind of eye treatments I can count on being sick for two or three days afterward. And then the migraines *create* visual disturbances, so the cycle perpetuates itself. I end up loading up on caffeine to try to work thru one of these attacks, and can't sleep at night without sleep aids -- which create visual effects of their own on top of the other ones. Every trip down a flight of stairs becomes an adventure.

The older I get the more I wonder if I ought to try trepannation as a last resort. Where's my electric drill?

 

[MisterCairo]

When you turn 53, and remember when you did not date women born in the 1970s because they were too young.

 

[tonyb]

When you turn 53, and remember when you did not date women born in the 1970s because they were too young.

An old friend (RIP) had a formula for this — divide the boy’s age by two and add seven to arrive at the ideal age for his new woman friend, seeing how we fellas are so slow to grow up and all.

It works for most any age except the earliest ones.
20 - 17; 30 - 22; 40 - 27; 50 - 32; and so on.

 

[green papaya]

when you dress up for WW2 living history events, and people mistake you as a real WW2 veteran wearing your old uniform

then you know you look much older than your age

 

[Edward Reed]

...when you go to bed at 7:30pm because you are not only tired but you've got nothing better to do. :/

 

[green papaya]

when you go out to dinner, the waiter asks how many?

you say your alone, table for one

 

[Edward Reed]

when you go out to dinner, the waiter asks how many?

you say your alone, table for one

fantastic post! loved this film! lol!