I turned thirty this year. I didn’t mention this at the time, because there was really no departure from my usual tradition: confuse the Dairy Queen folks by requesting a specially made ice cream cake without any ice cream, listen to my family complain about how I’m hard to shop for, and then stare into the mirror for an hour contemplating my inexorable march toward death.
I mention this now because it was the point at which I immediately became too old to function. Consequently, I hurt my back recently. On Sunday afternoons, I do one of my more intense workouts, on the theory that the best way to combat the Sunday night blues - that existential dread in anticipation of Monday - is to make Sunday itself more unpleasant. So, naturally, it was a Sunday afternoon when I hurt my back. Specifically, during that most dangerous part of the workout: standing up from your desk.
And in that moment, my status as elderly became fixed. I might as well start napping with a newspaper spread across my chest while Matlock plays in the background.
But, on the plus side, at least one nice thing has come out of this whole experience: when I got ice for my back, I realized that I still have some leftover ice cream cake.