You Know You’re Old When…

We were watching TV on New Year’s Eve, just me and Keeper. We weren’t watching Anderson Cooper or Ryan Seacrest or the poor guy who used to be Dick Clark. The year-end festivities were far from our minds as we enjoyed a few episodes of the British series “House of Cards” with our chow mein and chicken with black bean sauce.

There were no silly hats, no champagne, and no paper streamers. Just another night of TV and takeout at the Hanna house.

Then the phone rang.

I jumped up. “Who could be calling at this hour?” I asked Keeper. He shrugged, reaching for the remote. As he hit the pause button, I went to retrieve the portable phone from my office.

It was my friend Evelyn. She was hosting a family party which undoubtedly included champagne, hats, and streamers. “Happy New Year!” she cried.

She animatedly told me of her year-end doings and that me she just had to call and pass along some good news. She had given her cousin a copy of my book, “You May Already Be a Wiener!” and he LOVED it. He insisted on reading parts of it aloud to his wife and just couldn’t stop laughing. I had a new fan in Florida.

I thanked her for this little ego boost and we said goodbye with promises to get together in early January.

I hung up and glanced at the clock. It was 8:30. New Year’s Eve. The moment I had uttered the words “Who could be calling at this hour?” I had officially become an old person.

In the days that followed, I noticed more incipient signs of old age. My knees were complaining loudly. Eating pizza made my innards start talking in a socially unacceptable way. I caught myself shaking my fist at teenagers on skateboards.

One morning, I refused to get out of bed until someone brought me my “house shoes.” When it was time for lunch, I looked in the “icebox” for leftover oatmeal. I served dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon so we could nap before “CSI.”

Last week, I was doing a crossword puzzle (a favorite pastime of us geezers) and came across this clue: “a Vacation Proclamation.”

I tried some answers on for size. How about “We’re here” or “great place”? Maybe “let’s party” or “to the beach!”
Out of ideas for things to proclaim on vacation, I moved on to 23-across: “Traditional Chinese Gift.” This was a stumper. I had enough letters to know it was some kind of cake. Tea cakes? Ginger cakes? Those little sesame cake things?

No, it appeared to be FRUITcake. I wiped my reading glasses on my sweatshirt and looked again. The clue was “traditional CHRISTMAS gift,” not “CHINESE gift.”

I went back to 8-down, the vacation proclamation. The last four letters were B-U-L-L. The answer was “Papal Bull,” which made total sense if the clue were VATICAN proclamation.

Here’s a proclamation for you: Mary Hanna is officially an old person. And that’s no bull.