The Carwash

At age 60, I attract an increasing barrage of OGG (old guy grief) in my daily life.

No one imagines that I might be tech literate (people invite me to hand over my iPhone so they can type something in or perform some operation they imagine would evade me). I'm a fast walker, even by New York standards, but embarking on walks with new younger acquaintances, they'll often warn me, somberly, how far it is, asking if that's okay.

Those are the well-meaning, sympathetic manifestations. The flip side is eye rolls as the Old walks in the room. If I dare chat innocently with a young woman, I'm, like, SO GROSS. I obviously can’t so much as glance at a child. And I'm assumed to be a Fox News guzzling MAGA partisan (if I deny it, well, at least the old cooter has sufficient shame to disguise the truth).

Then, of course, there's the whole "Boomer" trope (I'm a few years after, but whatever), where the same kids who really, really, really oppose racism find it perfectly acceptable - even virtuous! - to savagely kick a segment of fellow human beings in the teeth for belonging to a category they have no choice but to fall into. But that's a separate issue.

For many people, the fact of having significant elapsed time on your clock makes you problematic. And this doesn't offend so much as bewilder me.

You will never have hairier shoulders than me. It's not possible. So go ahead and rank on mine. Make pukey face. I get it! And that schnozz you're gaping at, yup, augurs my membership in a certain tribe. If it's not your tribe, go ahead and flex your xenophobe muscles. No hard feelings; out-tribe aversion is baked deeply into the genome (just don't actually persecute me).

My odd sense of humor also marks me as "not from around here" in the deep binary of it all. And, in a world of superficial impressions, I'm not good looking. Many lack patience to look deeper, and have little appreciation for subtleties. Such a small existence makes their reaction reasonable, so I amiably take my lumps.

But being old is a whole other proposition, because that's something YOU WILL BE (with luck)! Everyone waits in line to stand in the very spot I currently occupy. Even if you have no empathy for others, the treatment you establish for those in my shoes is treatment you yourself will experience. 

Sane customers in the sudsing portion of the carwash would not enjoy the spectacle of a shit-smearing stage at the end of the process, post-dryer, even if it were REALLY FUNNY, because their cars are bolted to a track inexorably leading to that exact same station.