Conversation at work
Sometimes when I'm at work I take a break from beating small children and explaining the "Copy/Paste" function over and over again to computer users. During these breaks, sometimes I will deign to converse with other library staff members.
Yesterday I chatted with the 19-yr-old working the circulation desk and mentioned that the Spice Girls were getting back together. I forgot, when I said this, that my coworker friend was probably still wearing diapers when the Spice Girls were popular. Silly me.
Me: "That's just so funny. When I was in college the Spice Girls were this huge big deal."
Girl: "Woah, wait. You were in college way back then??"
Me: "I was a freshman in '97, and that's when they were big."
Girl: "Seriously? I didn't realize you were that old!"
Me: "Okay . . . "
Girl: "I thought you were like 25, maybe."
Me: "Well, I'm 27. Which isn't that different from 25."
At this point she started looking really uncomfortable, like I'd forgotten where I was or had just asked her to change my Depends.
Girl: "No, sure, of course it's not." (Don't get her angry! Don't get her angry! Old people are notoriously unstable!)
Me: "I'm actually turning 28 in a couple of months. So . . . menopause should be kicking in any day now."
By this point a guy who looked about 30 had come over to check out some stuff. At that last statement he looked like he didn't know whether to laugh at my joke or Run Away Really Fast before Something Bad Happened.
Girl: "You just -- I mean, you don't look that old. You look younger."
Me: "Thank you. That's very nice of you to say."
Then I placed a call to the agency that supplies me with young vestal virgin blood, which is what I bathe in so I can pass myself off as 25. I finally got their number from my mom after months of begging.
But I can't really blame the girl. When I was 19 I didn't think 25-yr-old single Mormon girls existed--or if they did they were sent off to some Failure Farm so as not to throw off everyone else's groove. So for this girl it was probably the equivalent of listening to her grandma talk about the guy she hooked up with after a round of Jello shots the night before.
I'm Steph, a librarian and mom of 3 (not sure how that happened). Let's chat books, food, Sumptuous Literary Adaptations, poop, knitting and maybe some crazy Mormon Feminism.
16 comments:
hahahaha! Reminds me of Happy Gilmore when the bank forecloses on his grandma's house: "look at her! She's . . . old" Good luck with the bloodbaths. Let us know how it works - maybe before and after pics would be appropriate.
Funny you should mention...I've been scoping out some acreage in southern New Hampshire for my Failure Farm. It's an opportunity for old gals (27 and older) to share costs of HRT prescriptions, there's a yarn store closeby, it's next to the yarn store...
I'll send you the link.
Oh dear. There are no words.
Yeah, I do the virgin blood thing too; that's how I can pass for 23 instead of 31. I get the same crap all the time: "You don't look that old...." Thanks, but I AM.
Does someone need a spare uterus--I'm not using mine....
Seriously, Kristen. And if anyone is wanting eggs that will create snarky blond children, you can buy some of mine. I offer very reasonable payment plans.
That's not a bad idea.....selling eggs. We could go into business you know.
There is a bunch of 25 and up single mormon girls out here in Oregon. I think I am in heaven.
It will never end, either. After you have kids, you hang out with people who are not your age, but who have kids the same age as your kids. In Mormon circles, this often puts me hanging out with younger moms who stare blankly when I make reference to Punky Brewster or Knight Rider or even the Cosby Show.
"You are 32, really? I thought you were WAY younger than that."
But now I will give the compliment that you are really to confident to need, but it is worth saying anyway. After our last book club at my house (you remember Plantboy was kind of hanging around the fringes?), my hubby said, "The blonde one, she's not married, right?"
"No."
"Mormon guys are so stupid."
I think you should go skydiving for your 28th birthday. To hell with any man who prefers a 19 year old to the hottie librarian.
oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!
It is much too early in the morning to be assaulted by something like this. You're lucky I didn't stop breathing from the overdose of HILARIOUS, because then you would have had my death on your head, on top of your being older than dirt.
I wish I looked older. Not a lot older, but, you know, maybe MY ACTUAL AGE would be nice. As it is, the only guys who hit on me are 18-year-olds (who don't realize I'm eight years their senior) or creepy fifty-year-olds (who are hoping I'm barely legal). Where's the happy medium?
Kristeee, will do. But not the "during" pictures, because I wouldn't want to frighten any children.
Mary, I'm in! I hope New Hampshire is nice.
Indeed, SB. Indeed.
Anon (also known as AuD), good to know! Of course, that puts a damper on my plan to one day move to Oregon. Sounds like the competition could be stiff.
STM, you are sweet and so is your husband. I don't think the Mormon boys should get all the blame, though. I've driven a fair number of nice ones away . . .
Lady Steed, I know! Also, how are you and your new baby doing?
Jer, don't even make me come pull your hair for the "older than dirt" remark. Even if it did make me nearly choke and die on my pancakes. I don't have any advice on the "older-looking" front. Maybe add some gray to your hair? Get a cane?
I've actually thought a lot about this post, having been a former YW teacher and trying to find a way to comfortably teach a curriculum with a heavy emphasis on marriage, babies and homemaking. I've also struggled to walk the line between, "Get all the education you can" and "Stay at home with your kids."
Undoubtedly, you colleague has had the same lessons. And, quite frankly, you scare her. You represent the thing, in her limited experience, she fears the most.
Sorry to get all existential on something that was really a funny story.
When my kids saw a photo of my brother and I watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on our new color tv my son said, "we're learning about that in history! I didn't know you were alive all the way back then."
Then my daughter said, "you were alive when they invented tv?"
Sigh.
If you look in the Old Testament, there's a picture of me in there. With Moses.
:(
.
I don't really have a comment, but I haven't left you one in a long time, so I just wanted to say that this is one of your best posts ever. And I'm not just sayin' it to have something to say, either. You're very funny.
A member of my singles ward bishopric related the tale of a movie from the 70s that told the story of a world where no one was under thirty. Everyone had a crystal in this world and when you turned thirty the crystal starts blinking and then you go to some place to die. After he told this story, he told us there was life after the singles ward when you were kicked out. I asked one of my friends who was about to be kicked out if his crystal was blinking, he remarked his had already exploded.
I remember when I was 20 and there was a girl in my singles ward who was 25 and I just thought, "Wow, what must it feel like to be her? 25 years old and still single in the singles ward. Poor thing."
5 years later I found out, and, oh look, 10 years later here I am, dried up and withered. Pass the vestal virgin blood!
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