Aging At The Push of A Button

I was shopping in the little pharmacy in the mall near us. They had some new Valentines Day stuff in and I wanted to get a few things to send to the kids. I found some wonderful 'princess' Valentines that I know will be a huge hit, in they went into the bag. There were other little things that were perfect sized to go into a package for little girls.

Amazingly I never noticed this stuff until we had the kids to shop for. For me, it's kind of a mammoth act of will to enter into the spirit of Valentines day in any way, shape or form. Memories of being the one kid that got only 'runt' valentines, the one's other kids mothers made them fill out haunt me still. But part of the 'job' of being and adult is to not let the pain of the past be passed on to a little child's present. So, I'm getting a batch of Valentines card and working up a little speech about how every kid should get a card specially picked out!

My bag was near full and shopping time was near over. I saw Joe, who was in the grocery store picking up tomato paste wave at me from the mall. He was ready. I got in line up and when it was my turn the nice man at the till grabbed up my bag and pulled stuff out scanning and chatting with me as he often does. He's a friendly guy. The bill came to 51.04 and I got out my wallet only to see him push a button on the till that magically dropped my bill to just over 40 dollars. I looked at him with shock. My face said, "That was cool, what happened?"

He told me that it was 20 percent off for seniors that day. I told him quickly that I wasn't a senior. He looked at the machine confused and said, "I don't know how to make you young again."

"Neither do I," I said and we both started laughing.

So.

I'm officially old.

Or old looking.

Does it matter which?