When I was a kid, I remember how adults always seemed so pleased when people thought they were younger than they actually were. It was strange conduct, and I would observe it and think: how stupid. Why would you want to be younger than you are? All I knew then was that six years old sucked because it meant there was a world of things I couldn't do yet. Older was always better. Ten, for instance, meant I would be bigger and could do more. Sixteen was even better because I could drive! And if I was thirty? Well, how cool would that be? Then I could surely do all the things I wanted, and some. Yes, thirty seemed mighty cool at age six. For that matter, so did twenty, or forty, or fifty. It was all the same, really: any age older than six. Older was always better. Older was positively fascinating.

Well, thirty has come and gone for me . . . two years past now . . . and you know what? Not all that fascinating.

And, just as I feared, I now find myself pleasantly surprised downright giddy when people think I'm still in my twenties. I observe this weird behavior in myself and I still think: how stupid. Only now I say it like this: how fucking stupid. And it is. I mean, if I'm already acting this way at 32, then in about ten more years, I'll be shopping for my first mid-life crisis car (a BMW) and telling cheesy jokes to girls half my age.

Shit. This isn't good. I mean, I've always said I couldn't wait until I got older so I could be a 'dirty old man.' But this is way too soon, man. Too soon. Dirty old men are 'cute' when they're 75. But they're called something altogether different when they're in their 30s and 40s. It's a word you tend to say right after the words, 'Get away!' and 'I'll call the cops!'

Anyway, something happened to me yesterday that got me thinking about all this. I was working out in the Red Room at the 17th and Rhode Island YMCA. Normally, at the time of day I work out, the Red Room is populated with people who are . . . well . . . I don't want to call them 'old' because, you know, who am I to throw stones, right? I'll just call them 'people who were born a little closer to . . . the time of Christ.' I think that sounds better doesn't it?

Anyway, I was in the Red Room and using the bench press machine and this kid was working out near me. I would put him at about 22, maybe 23. He walked over to me and said something, but I had a hard time hearing him because my iPod was set to 'blare.'

I removed the earbud from my left ear. "I'm sorry?" I said it amicably. I figured he probably was interested in using the machine I was on and wanted to 'work in' with me. I was a little put out by this, but I didn't want to appear so.

"Do you know . . . are these machines just for . . ." He lowered his voice. ". . . older people?"

I stared at him for a moment, not really understanding the question. Are . . . these . . . machines . . . for . . . I tried reconstructing the sentence to see if it made better sense in my head that way.

"You know because aside from you and me, everybody else is . . . "

Then all at once I caught his drift. He had noticed that the majority of people in the room were . . . old! And (this is the part I really like) since he figured me to be much closer to his age, he wanted to see if I knew what the fuck was up with all these old people, yo.

I laughed out loud, which I think might have made him a little self-conscious.

"Oh!" I said with a little too much delight in my voice. "No, no. It's cool." My point was clear: Never mind these freakish ancients, my fellow twenty-something friend. You and I can hang here no problem. Our kind is welcome in these parts. It lifts their spirits to have us around.

Here was a guy who didn't know that, later that night, I would pop two Aleve before going to bed. That sometimes I have a hard time orchestrating trickier movements, like standing up from a chair. That I use various and sundry ointments. That my hair is beginning to fall out of my head at an alarming rate . . . and (even more alarming) sprout out of my back with a sort of glib alacrity.

Nope he didn't know all that. To him, I was just another twenty-something in a room full of 'older people.' There's still hope for me, yet. For another couple of years, anyway.

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