16 Surefire Ways To Know You’re Getting Old

Last night, I went to see The Cold War Kids and had a few drinks and several shots too many, and I am paying for it today. It was a painful realization that although I still feel 21, I am in fact, no spring chicken. Despite my best efforts to preserve myself physically, (i.e. Costco sized tubs of anti-wrinkle cream) life has other ways of reminding me of my actual age.

First my friends all started getting married and having kids (on purpose nonetheless), and now my best friend (vodka) is turning on me.  I feel so betrayed. As long as gravity doesn’t start to take its toll, I’m still in business for a few years…

So until then, here are some other surefire ways to tell if you too are getting old like me:

1. You spend so much time getting ready you are ultimately exhausted from the process and debate even going out at all.

2. Your house contains plants that are actually alive…and aren’t marijuana.

3. You look at pictures of your 21 year old self, and your first thought is, “I was so skinny.” Your second is remembering how fat you thought you were.

4. You would rather nap than attend happy hour. You would rather nap than do anything really.

5. Everyone at the bar begins to look 12. Not 25. Not 21.  12.

6. You start wearing sunblock. Pale is the new black right?

7. At the mall, you walk past Abercrombie and Fitch and have respiratory failure/go deaf simultaneously.

8. You look at a Snicker’s bar, calculate how many minutes you have spend on the treadmill to burn it off, and decide it’s just not worth it.

9. You would rather buy your own drinks then have to talk to that creepy guy for five minutes.

10. You think, “I would never let my daughter leave the house wearing that,” when you don’t even have kids, and you wore things three times as revealing.

11. During the week, that second glass of wine is always a bad idea. You will however, continue to drink it/regret it the following morning.

12. You have a bad knee, or back, or something you generally ignored for years which has finally given up on you.

13. A once week long birthday extravaganza becomes just a dinner. Ok, take out.  Fine, delivery.

14. You find yourself explaining the importance of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to today’s ungrateful youth.

15. Now you turn down those free open bar parties from the bar because cheap, well liquor is the Devil Bobby.

16. Coffee used to work, but now the only way to feel its effects would be to inject it directly into your veins.