I'm Younger Than That now

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Jetison
To: Recipients
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:50:34 PM
Subject: RE: Hi...

Hope your day is going great - the meeting went well...
 
I was born in 1957 !

----- End of Message ----

It began with a quick e-mail from my new job, with a cryptic reference to an incident that had just occurred at work.

If it had been a newspaper headline, or a network news teaser it might have read.

Older Man Narrowly Survives Collision With Youth - Ego Bruised - Condition Guarded

But 1957 ? It was a knee jerk reaction to a moment of panic. The product of a bad math education and diminishing reflexes. The result of vanity confronting the ropeadope reality of life. A desperate act of instinctual survival, even if that survival was only a useless symbolic gesture to preserve some degree of self image.

OK, so what do you do when you're an older guy on your first week of work, you're filling out an online web form asking for your birth date and your 20-something trainer is looking over your shoulder ?! If you don't want to look like you're ready for the 'Geezer Farm" (even though they've already figured that out) you MAKE UP a date QUICK !!!!  I was feverishly trying to do the math in my head to come up with a believable date - and the numbers were spinning in my head like an over oiled slot machine, but I'm not a math whiz, so this was the first number that popped into my head and I typed it in almost without hesitation (even though the whole process was happening in slow motion like a bad accident, in my mind)! 

Yea, I know it sounds pretty stupid - I'm no spring chicken, and I know I don't look like one either, nor am I ashamed or depressed about my age, in fact I'm quite comfortable with where I am. But panic trumps common sense and pride or vanity grabbed the wheel as an imaginary highway sign suddenly appeared above my cube - EXIT 60 - GRAMPS - CUBICLE 1 - MEALS ON WHEELS DELIVERIES IN REAR.

So - maybe what they don't know, won't hurt 'em I guess - keep 'em guessing, at least on the ugly details. For starters, I've performed a clever transformation of my wheeled walker into a close facsimile of a media cart, and aside from the odd looks I get when wheeling a tape deck into the bathroom, things seem to be going well.

If things get desperate - I mean if they (those young whippersnappers) decide to make any trouble I'll just have to whack 'em with my cane.