So I went over to the local bowling lanes yesterday to get some practice in before the Pro-Am. Since Kathleen was at a get-together in the city, I brought Caroline along. I was in a lane next to a senior citizen couple, and as I unloaded my bowling equipment onto the rack, the fellow turns to me, looks at Caroline, smiles and says, “Is she here to help grandpa bowl?”
“I’m her father,” I said.
He looked at me as if I hadn’t understood what he was saying. “Her grandfather?”
“No,” and my voice turned to ice. “Her father.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Really?”
“YES!”
I dunno. Maybe I should start dying my hair…or at least what’s left of it…
PAD
• 
Well at least he didn’t think you were Jerry Garcia. A mistake I made when I saw your picture on the back of one of your book jackets. (or was it on a website?). Coincidentally, what’s your opinion on Cherry Garcia ice cream?
My philosophy is “The more hair I loose, the more head I get.”
But really, your not getting old untill you start paying with exact change (out of the little rubber change holder), go to the ‘market’ instead of the ‘store,’ or state that you are waiting to see your ‘program’ as opposed to your favorite TV show.
The final stage of aging, however, is when you drive 6-10 miles out of your way to save $0.35 on cheese. And then argue about the price.
Salutations,
M
Well…my brother was forty-six when his son made him a grandfather, so the guy’s assumption wasn’t strictly out-of-bounds.
You’re right, though…people shouldn’t take anything for granted.
Can’t get away from it, though…increasing age is an inevitable side-effect of not having died yet.
I had two college profs, a man and woman, who had the same last name. Like an idiot (and in the middle of the man-prof’s office), I says “Is Mrs. Prof your mother?”
“No”, he replies, “She’s my wife.”
After that, I learned to keep all nosy questions to myself.
PAD,
Count yourself lucky. I was at one point mistaken for my brother’s dad.
Problem is, I’m only a year older than my brother…
Nice Prufrock quote.
Travis
Peter, as a 41-year-old father whose daughter is about the same age as yours, you have my complete sympathy. My brother had a similar experience, and I’m steeling myself for this inevitable blow.
For me, however, the ultimate in cluelessness is still those people who walk up to us, look at my daughter clad head-to-toe in pink, and comment on what a “handsome little boy he is.” I would ignore it and mutter a “thank you,” but they always seem to follow up with the question “What’s his name?” I then reply “Amanda,” and walk away in the ensuing silence.
Oh yeah Travis! Then he heard the mermaids singing, each to each, and told Ariel to shut up, he was trying to write!
Because the editors always come and go, talking of Michelangelo (and Raphael, Leonardo and Donatello…)
eddie
nice paraphrased quote. that line was always a favorite of mine, since high school.
My mother was mistaken for my girlfriend one time, which cheered her up to no end. If that didn’t make me feel old enough, though, the week before she had been asked if she qualified for a senior citizens discount (she was maybe 45 at the time).
I sense a charity raffle here! Winner gets to decide Peter’s new hair color?
Nice Prufrock quote.
What, someone else said that first?
PAD
Remember that hair loss is caused by excess of testosterone, the MALE hormone.
Let’s face it, we’re all heading for that big colonostophy in the sky.
At least you’re in good company; I’m sure Letterman will be getting a lot of the same.
“Nice Prufrock quote.
What, someone else said that first?”
Well, YEAH, someone said that first, PAD: The Mole Man, in Hulk Annual #17.
Duh.
Well, just to share, here’s another story of well-meaning but unbelievably tactless baby-centric conversation.
Setting it up a bit: I’m half Asian, my wife isn’t at all, and (particularly when she was newborn) my daughter reflects her Asian genes.
So one day my wife and daughter are riding in an elevator (I was not with them) when another passenger oohs and ahs over the baby, saying, “Oh, she’s so cute! Where did you get her from?”
“She’s mine,” my wife explains.
“No, I mean…I have friends who’ve adopted Asian babies, too. Where did she come from?”
“She’s mine.” My wife repeated. “She came out of me.”
To hear my wife tell the story, the other passenger was somewhat slow to understand what my wife was saying, but eventually became duly mortified at the presumptuousness of her question.
But, hey, what can you do?
I still take pleasure when people are surprised to find out that I’m 27, rather than the early 20’s that is generally assumed.
My mom was once mistaken for my sister though, and she’s cleared the 50 barrier. And she was also once mistaken to be her friend’s daughter. And she’s seven years older than he is.
The only thing that disturbs me about aging is how with each passing year somebody, after encountering both my father and I for the first time, will ask if I was cloned directly from his DNA. Not that looking like my dad is a bad thing, but it’s just weird.
I’m just the opposite. I’m 34 and get mistaken for my children’s (ages 11 & 12) older brother.
However, I knew I was getting old when I found some of my favorite music, the music I grew up with, on sale at the BP station. ($5.99 Super-Saver Series)
Not to worry. I am 40 and my wife and I will be having our FIRST child in January. That’s right, I have to keep up with popular culture at least until I’m 60…
I began losing my hair when I was seventeen. I remember distinctly that as the hair began to sprout on my chest (and back), I was losing it atop my head. It was an undesired reallocation of resources of which I still do not approve.
As disconcerting as it was to awaken to the hair abandoned on my pillow each morning, I really did take the loss in stride. I resolved early on to lose my hair with dignity. No comb-overs for this guy nor hair pieces.
My calling, my destiny, was to be bald with style.
Besides, I like hats. One day, when I am more bald than I am haired (is that a word?), I can wear hats without the consequence of hat-hair. So, not a bad thing.
What has always bugged me though is not my inevitable march towards skin-headedness, but the reaction of those around me to it.
Really, I have a lovely head. I don’t understand why people are distressed by seeing more of it. But they are.
Once, I was over at my Dad’s house when my step-mother shoved a clipped news-paper article into my hand.
“I thought you’d be interested in this!” She said with soft concern.
A glance at the article revealed the headline: HAIR RESTORATION BREAKTHROUGH!
Years ago, I ran into a friend from high school.
The first words out of her mouth, “You’re losing your hair!”
“It’s the chemo,” I answered solemnly.
She apologized and awkwardly excused herself several minutes later.
I never did set her straight.
Now, I didn’t go to either my ten or fifteen year reunions, but I have this sneaky suspicion that I may have been featured in the Ones-Who-We-Remember memorium.
I had a nice head of hair in my graduation picture. With any luck, that’s the image they used.
Mark Dominy wrote: “…I says ‘Is Mrs. Prof your mother?’ … After that, I learned to keep all nosy questions to myself.”
The delicate way to ask this question is, “Is there any relation?” That way, you don’t imply any age bias and it’s less embarassing if the answer is “no.”
If you think this comment that you still have sex at an age that for they was incredible, better for you
Whenever I take my mom out to dinner, the waitress inevitably asks, “Would you and your husband like a nice table?” She’s delighted, I’m speechless.
When I was a baby, my mother would take me in the stroller to the park. People would tell her, “Wow, his parents are lucky that they have someone to take care of him.” My mother, who is of European descent said, “Of course… he’s my son!”
Steve Chung
Aron head,
Your story was awesome. That’s a riot about what you did to that girl.
I started going gray when I was a freshman in high school. By the time I graduated, I was about 95% gray. At my first job after college I was asked this question during lunch:
So, how many grandkids do you have?
Mind you I did not have any wrinkles, and I was in my 20’s at that time.
Now, 12 years later, I feel like I should be on an Al Rocher feature about being 100 years old.
Except, I’m not even 35 yet!!
Grecian formula and Geritol never looked so good.
In summary:
You are only as old as you feel.
You should have whipped out some Big Lebowski quotes. “Smokey, you are about to enter a world of PAIN!”
Gripe, gripe, gripe. There are SF pros who weren’t alive when Star Wars first came out in theaters. (I met many of them last night, in a venue where they probably should have been proofed to get in…)
I’m 40 years old, and last April I finally got the baby brother I had been waiting for. (My stepmother is 38 and my father is 65.) I went with my stepmother and my brother to his first well baby exam when he was a week old, and my stepmother had gone to use the restroom when the doctor walked in.
“This is my baby brother,” I told the doctor. “Pen is in the bathroom.”
“Oh, so you’re the aunt?” the doctor said.
“No,” I said very patiently, “I’m his sister.”
“So the baby’s father is your brother?”
“Noooo, the baby’s father is my father.”
“So he’s your step-brother.”
“No, he’s my half-brother.”
Finally, the idiot…er, doctor got it. Sigh.
I feel your pain Peter – sort of – when I was 21, my father started to procreate again – now he’s 60 with a 14 year old and an 11 year old – we tell him he made his own grandchildren.
It’s gonna bite me in the ášš though – my wife and I are gonna be older parents, too (she’s 36 and I’m 35).
BTW – Mark – did you go to San Diego State? I had a friend there who was about my age but seriously salt-and-peppered.
I get asked if my girlfriend is my daughter way too often. Granted she is younger than me….BY A MONTH AND TWO WEEKS!!! We’re both 24. She does look a bit younger, but I sure don’t look old enough to have a 24 year old daughter.
A friend of ours brought her baby over in a stoller the other week and said ‘I hate people’
‘Why?’
‘I keep getting asked about being her grandmother, but today I was asked when the next one was due by someone who didn’t know me but thought I was pregnant.’
Now this lady might be a little older than me, in her early 40’s and is tall and maybe a little bit heavy but not much. She really is quite nice looking.
People is stupid sometimes.
my mum got ID’d in a gift shop once (you couldnt be in there unless you were over 16)
She was holding my little brother (howling ‘Mommy!’) down and strapping him into his stroller as the rather clueless attendant approached her. She had to produce her drivr’s liscence… as though the presence of two children she would have had to have aged 10 and 12 didnt count for anything.
I was seven, I remember it clearly.
People can be quite daft.
🙂
So has anyone mistaken your oldest daughter for Caroline’s mother?
David
Do what I did. Shave your head. I noticed when I was about 21 that I was losing my hair so I just bought clippers got rid of it. Now I was just shave it with a Mach3 on Sundays..no mess..no fuss. 🙂
And if I shave my goatee then I get id’ed for EVERYTHING. I’m 35. 🙂
At age 31, I was not permitted to buy a six-pack of O’Douls alchohol-free beer in a supermarket because I hadn’t brought my ID.
Started turning gray at 12. Started dyeing hair at 16. Kept it up for over 30 years. Got dámņëd tired of it. Now at 53, am totally WHITE haired. If someone thinks I’m old, so be it. I know I’m not and that’s what counts. And just to show how opposite people can be – the other day I was out with my two grandchildren (ages 2 and 4), and the salesclerk asked me how old my “children” were. She was a bit shocked when I said “34 and 21.” Guess she thought they were little people!
Peter:
Don’t feel bad.
At the rate I’m going (41 and still single as I type this) by the time I find the proverbial ‘Miss Right’ and get married; any children we have will be graduating high school about the time I’m ellegible to start collecting social security!
Wait a minute…. You’re her grandfather?
PAD, take the easy route: Invest in a wardrobe of offensive T-shirts. Nothing says ‘young at heart’ better than a ‘Who’s Your Daddy?!’ or ‘Make Seven Up Yours!’ tee. http://www.tshirthell.com is a good site to find one, but they’re not for the faint of heart. I mean, I kick walkers out from under people and eat fluffy bunnies for breakfast, and some of their stuff offends even me.
The OTHER John Byrne
I think the best wholly inappropriate comment story I’ve ever heard comes from the former Registrar of the college I work at. She was in her late 30s/early40s, married, and has two kids, and discovered she was pregnant. She told one of the faculty members that she was pregnant, about three months along, and the professor asked. “Are you going to keep it?”
Its ok, PAD, I had a moment of mistaken identity hit me recently. I was working at a sci-fi con a few weeks back, and thought a guy in a ST:TNG movie uniform was you. I turned to Arne Starr to ask him, and he said it wasn’t. 🙂
Granted, I recently got weird looks from people at a mall because I was hanging out at the mall with my best friend and his two kids.
I look my age, but my mother used to look much younger. We got mistaken for brother and sister in restaurants all the time.
For what it’s worth, I was present the first time Harlan Ellison used a senior citizen discount (due to being asked by the waitron if he qualified for it, which at this particular Denny’s apparently an age of 55 did). He actually took it very well. 🙂
I’m 40 and have a 7 year old nephew. so go figure heh. I never would of dreamed of being an aunt at my young age. I’m gray ontop and for a female my age to be that gray is weird. been gray since I was young. You’re only as old as you feel. 🙂
Reminds me of when I started to go grey at the age of 22…
“Dad, when did your hair start to grey?” “Right after I married your mother”
We both had to duck as the frying pan came flying at him.
Scott45
I was starting to feel kinda down about hitting 42; but now I feel much better! Thanks!
-Old Hippie-
I watch my twin nephews (1 yr old next month) once a week for a couple of hours. If my sister and I take the boys somewhere, I usually get mistaken for their father. It will even happen after my sister quite clearly calls me Uncle Christopher.
Everyone else is chiming in with their stories, so I will, too.
While my sister (now 23, I’m 25) was in high school, she worked at a local Pizza Hut, and continued to do part-time work there on the weekends that she was home from college. A couple of weeks ago, I stopped to pick up a pizza there, and the manager looked at my credit card, glanced up at me and asked: “Hey, there was a Sizemore who used to work here — Amanda. Are you her dad or something?”
Needless to say, the next time I want pizza, I’m going elsewhere.
I often get mistaken for a teenager (I’m 28) but my mom told me when she was thirty, and my sister (the first born) was going to grade 1 for the first time. After my mom dropped her off, she tried to leave and other teachers at the school thought she was a Junior High student trying to skip school.