WAKE UP CALL

Yesterday I left Bill at the eyeglasses counter at Costco and went off meandering on my own. I completed the circuit, saw what I wanted to see, and returned to the eyeglasses counter. Bill was not there.

Knowing that he was probably looking for me, I stationed myself in the center of two main intersecting aisles. This always works because I frequently meander off not paying attention to which way he has gone and I need to be "found." And he did find me.

"I thought I saw you before," he said to me, "but I was pretty sure you didn't have on a red top." And, of course, I didn't. Don't have but one red top -- rarely worn. Red is not my color.

"Look," he said, "there she is down there." And he pointed down the way to the woman wearing a red top. She was about ten inches shorter than me, she looked a lot thinner than me, and I am fairly thin right now. She had short hair like me. She had white hair like me. She was a little stoop shouldered, NOT like me. And she was old.

......like me?

I was stunned. Do I really look that old? Guess so. Don't like it very much, but there it is. Barbara is getting old. Getting? Hmmmm. Maybe is. I am sixty nine. I think of eighty as being old -- not sixty nine. My aunt Mary is ninety nine and that is old. Somehow I just don't think of myself as being old. And, guess what? I'm going to continue to not think of myself as being old.