Getting Old

"Old" is relative. 16 year old men are young. 16 year old rice pudding is officially a living organism. Ironic. I am 2 and 1/2 years from being 30. (You only believe it because of my stupendous beard) I remember when 30 was old to me. 30 the youngest that anyone has ever been "old" to me at anytime in my life. I realize that to some of you 30 is young. Like I said, old is relative. I will cherish every age that I am because no matter what I am young to somebody. That is not entirely true since there is an official age that is without question old. The age is 100, and then obviously anything coming after that. I heard about a woman who lived to be 123. She outlived her grandchildren. That's ridiculous. Moving on.
But I can't stand when things are all relative and subjective, so I decided to invent an old scale. On this scale, it doesn't matter if you're young to someone, only if you're old to someone. Just pretend that young means under 25. The reason I say that "old" starts at 25 is 25 is the age that you can start saying "when I was your age" to people in High School and they think you're lame. Just the fact that you're saying, "when I was your age" or are even inclined to say such a thing to anybody is a sign of being "old". In my estimation, you're old if you're old to someone. I realize this means that most of the human race is "old" and that if I were serious about making an "old" scale that it would be more sensible to make a young scale since that includes a less amount of the population. According to my line of reasoning thus far, "young" is under 25. But of course it's no fun to be sensible. And so it's on with the old scale.
The point of the old scale is to declare who you're old to. There is a gap between 19-24 that's somewhat of a mathematical enigma, but these people we can just call "the have yet to understand how great it is to have a job group" Like I said if you're 25-35, you're old to 18 and below. If your 36-45 you're old to 21 and below. If you're 46 to 60 you're old to 25 and below. If you're 61 to 77 you're old 40 and below. If you're 78 to 85 you're old to everyone but people over 100. If you're 100. You are 100! You've lived a century and are above the irreverent moniker "old". You are an honorary sage.
A key question is, what are some sure signs that I'm old? Remember "old" simply means "old to someone". So, you know you're old when you can remember when Blockbuster was awesome. You know you're old when you can remember when people laughed at people who wore glasses at the theater. You know you're old when you've seen corduroy come in out and out 5 times. You know you're old when you've seen just finished Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and had this thought. "I thought this was the blockbuster of all Blockbusters. And I thought the Joker wasn't actually supposed to be funny" You're old when you say "Mac Machine". You're old when you have an emotional response to the phrase "Smells Like Teen Spirit". You're old when you know why Pearl Jam doesn't deserve "best new artist" at the Grammy's.
Some of you will read this and think, "I must be really old, since I don't even know what ole' Matt is talking about." And then you will think. "Hey Matt doesn't know what he talking about!" He's young! I bet he doesn't know which member of Simon&Garfunkel wrote their songs. I bet he doesn't know what Neil Young means when he says 'four dead in Ohio", I bet he doesn't know what Roller Skates are, not to mention the Roller Derby. I bet he's never seen a live pterodactyl" You must remember that the objective definition of "old" is when anyone thinks you're old. So although they are certainly degrees of "old", you and I are both old. But you know what. Older is wiser, so I'm all ears.