Happy Hour

As many people often remind me, I act like an elderly person. Of course, friends and family attempt to tip-toe around the term—my parents call me “a woman ahead of my time,” while some friends call me “geriatric.” But, they all imply that despite my outward appearance, inside, I look like an uptight woman with thick bifocal glasses and a walker. Perhaps I convinced them of my old age the time I called up South Franklin Circle and asked to join their gym. They told me I could, of course, so long as I do not disturb the residents during their noon water aerobics courses or during their power walks on the treadmill.  However, I never joined as it cost too much and I despise parting with money—another quality of the elderly. Perhaps I convinced them of my senior tendencies when I expressed my desire to live in the South Franklin Circle community down the street from my house. In my defense, who would not want to live down those quiet streets with paved walking trails, and have access to the many recreation rooms? However, I think my extreme(ly) elderly eating schedule sealed my fate. Confession: I eat dinner at 3:30pm. Once I arrive home from school, assuming I do not have to work or tutor, I begin preparing my dinner—usually a rice or pasta dish. Once the water boils and I have made a pathetic attempt at sautéing vegetables or cooking spaghetti, I sit down, and my mother joins me at the dinner table to watch me eat. Another confession: I sit on an orthopedic cushion at the dinner table. Before my readers begin to judge, I must share that I have a tailbone condition. My coccyx, instead of facing inward like most people’s, faces out at a 90 degree angle, a condition my doctor called “unprecedented.” I prefer to call it highly evolved, of course, especially as I shamefully sit on the orthopedic cushion my grandparents ordered me from one of their senior citizen catalogs. Once my mother joins me at the table, we discuss what we watched last night on PBS. “That was a great episode of Antiques Roadshow, last night,” I prompt her as we chat about the ornate grandfather clocks and homemade quilts that, you guessed, the elderly brought in for valuation. Then, of course, the conversation turns to my favorite show, Downton Abbey, a show which Lauren Lang told me her grandmother also loves, as I finish the last of my dinner around 3:45pm. I quickly clear my plate and clean up the pans before I head up to my room to begin homework. “Be sure to come downstairs at 7:00,” my mother calls to me as I begin walking up the stairs, “Wheel of Fortune is celebrity-version tonight!” I must confess that I have not embellished in my attempt to make this daily routine extreme. I do sit on an orthopedic cushion; I have tried to join the South Franklin Circle gym; I do eat dinner at happy hour. I live an extreme life, at least, an extremely elderly one. So, I need not exaggerate, for if I did, I would wear a Life Alert necklace and carry a walker, and I am much too young—Wait! I have fallen and cannot get up!