Bartender’s Tips by CJ Schaffer
Lookin’ Good
“Wow, you look good for your age!!!” I can’t be sure if that statement is bothering me lately because I have a birthday coming up, or because I spend so much time at school with people who are mostly fifteen years younger or older than me. I swear if I hear it one more time I might just loose it. When I am bartending I expect to put up with some stuff. For example, the twenty-one and three quarters of a year old who can’t believe I am carding him: “I’ve been twenty-one for, like, almost a year, man.”
“Well, I still need to see your I.D., please.”
“Dude whatever, like, how old are you?” “Did we go to high school together?”
“I don’t think so, I graduated from high school fourteen years ago.”
“Wow, you look good for your age!”
“Thank you, I still need to see your I.D.”
I expect conversations like this when I am at work…not when I am working out, grocery shopping, picking my kids up from school, in the middle of my Art History class, (which is three hours of, “please shoot me”, lecture), or any place else. If age is only a number, and your only as old as you feel then I’m thirty-three going on seventy-eight.
Since when is thirty-three old? I haven’t thought thirty-three was old ever since turning thirty, so that has been at least three years. I have a theory that when my children all move out of the house I will get younger. This is based on only being as old as you feel. While being a parent can make you feel young because you know all the Disney shows, and read books like Harry Potter or the Twilight series, it can also make one feel very old. The stress over how you are going to get to three different practices, make dinner, clean the kitchen, get milk, take a shower, and go to work can make a person feel old. I think that may be why I have been so offended by the statement, ”you look good for your age.” How dare a person talk to their elder that way! On the other hand, when the children are no longer in need of my laundry, cooking, and driving skills I will feel forty-five years younger bringing me to my “natural” age then with no one to be responsible for. I will be able to have a fabulous mid-life crisis, and when a “nearly twenty-two year old” tells me I look good for my age I can give him my phone number. Although I may feel older hangin’ with someone that young, so I will keep using the exfoliating anti-oxidant green tea gel mask I have on right now, and date men my age…that way I will look like a younger woman dating an older man. When the mask stops working I can do the three “L’s” (lipo, lift, and laser).
As I am writing this I am reminded of a conversation I recently had with my mother where I accused her and my father of acting like a couple of teenagers. Their behavior further proves my point that we behave younger as our children grow, and I now have that to look forward to. The problem is I have spent most of my life trying not to become my parents. I guess it is a sign of old age when one realizes there’s no hope – we will all become a bit, or a lot, like our parents. I’m going to tell my oldest daughter that. She and I share a birthday and she is going to be twelve going on twenty (add ten more years to my age), and I call her mini me. She thinks I am the most embarrassing, immature, and occasionally wonderful person on the planet. I am not so sure she will be happy to learn she will be a lot like me some day. However, my youngest daughter informs me she will be just like me when she grows up. She is an old and wise soul.
As I come to the end of my rant I realize it is time for your tip… Don’t tell women under seventy, “WOW, you look good for your age!” Try sticking to just “you look good” and leave out any mention of age.
Please contact me at cj@sierramountaintimes.com. I love to hear form you.
