Definite Signs That I'm Anachronistic

You know how we're said to be the last to know about everything? Like our girfriend is cheating on us or we've been fired or there were custard-filled doughuts in the workroom three hours ago? Of course, by the time we find out, our wives already know, someone else is sitting in our cubicle playing with our bobblehead of Brett Favre, checking out our iTunes selections AND the only remaining edible is a crappy, prune-filled Danish! That's how I feel. Here are the indications that make me think I'm an anachronism:

1. I just discovered how to publish and edit a blog, thinking it's a big secret unless I give out the URL . Dozens of spammers find me in seconds, it seems like, and my genius student Kyle said he found the site "...in about five minutes." Hell, I still have trouble finding it myself sometimes.

2. I recently attended a wedding at which the DJ played some unintelligible song and all the women got up and began shaking their "groove thangs" while I sat there looking nonplussed. A young man said, "What's the matter? Didn't they teach you this in dance instructor school?" Fortunately for him, I had a handful of mini Kit Kats that I'd just swiped from my grandson and was busy stuffing my face. I subsequently returned to school only to find THAT SAME SONG on a CD that the kids used for volleyball. "Oh this? It's been played at every dance I've been to for the last three years!" Thanks, Beckie. sigh

3. A neighbor recently lamented an upcoming birthday: number 30. I noted that David Bowie's Fame was #1 on the Billboard charts on the day she was born. Then I remembered, David Bowie was almost 30 when he sang that song, and he and I are almost the same age. Add almost 30 and 30, and you get anachronism!

4. I just got the hang of the iPod shuffle and now that's old technology! The iPod nano (as in "nano, n-nano, you can't have one") holds jillions more songs, isn't much bigger and is so affordable that every kid on my block will have one while I hold steadfastly to the 2nd generation stuff. (But I still have a reel-to-reel player...AND tapes!) Anybody can carry something that weighs less than an ounce. Real (reel) men need something that weighs 10 pounds and says "manly" on it. Portable schmortable! If it doesn't take up an entire wall of the den, I don't want it.

4. Dennis wears jeans to school that are so ripped and torn that the only thing I couldn't see was the label. He says it's a fashion statement: paying $60 at Abercrombie for destroyed clothing...I wouldn't, but that's just the old man in me, I guess. No scientific data to indicate what the rest of the student population thought, but my informal poll ran about 4-3 against. We'll see if he still wears them when it's a billion below in winter! Flannel boxers might be the only addition would be my guess.

5. I want the Cleveland Indians to LOSE, for goodness sakes.

6. My wife and I just booked a hotel room at the "senior citizen rate." 'nuff said.