Another sign of getting a little older occurred today. I was at the grocery store picking up a few things and when I arrived at my car in the parking lot, a mother and daughter were climbing into the van next to me. This presented no particular problem for anyone but I waited a moment to let them back out - the parking lot equivalent to holding the door open or walking on the outside of the sidewalk - the mother looked over at me and smiled while waving me forward.
It was very nice of her and I accepted her courtesy but I got to thinking, when does the role reverse? She was sitting in a minivan and perched significantly higher than I, since I was in a low slung vehicle whose roof reached her window level. It would have been much easier for her to exit first but I could sense some sort of respect for the old guy as she waved me on - or was it a dismissal? I now have to watch for those occasions when the roles reverse and will probably also need to create a test to determine when I am being looked upon as older and therefore somewhat harmless. Do you ever get the idea that I could have been a writer for some of the Seinfeld episodes about nothing? Not the humor thing, just the nothing thing. By the way, for those of you keeping track, I still take the divider that we use on the grocery store conveyor belt and turn it over - it still drives people nuts - another Seinfeld episode.
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