Know Your Source Material

From my Facebook page:

Dear Acura,

Re: your advertising dept.

I try not to tell people how to do their jobs, mostly for 2 reasons: 1. I don't want the general public telling me how to do my job, and 2. Other people have expertise in areas that I don't. But every time I see your new commercial, I cringe a bit more.

I get it; nostalgia sells, and who doesn't love the Stones? Plus, you were thinking that, "Please me allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste" would appeal to people who have wealth (or want it) and like to think that they have good taste.

But the thing is, Acura, virtually everyone who has heard the song is aware of the rest of the lyrics. Do you REALLY think that a song with the lyrics, "I rode a tank, held a general's rank, when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank" is a great sales tool? Because that's what we hear in our heads when your commercial runs. I mean, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, assuming that you just didn't think about it, or you're thinking that no one knows what "blitzkrieg" means anymore; because, if you actually wanted to pitch to Nazis or sympathizers, that's a horror instead of carelessness.

I'm not one of those crazies who howls, "Rock music is devil worship! Just look at this song's title!" while clutching my scriptures. I love rock music; I've attended rock concerts. Obviously, I'm a Rolling Stones fan. But I also recognize subtlety and irony and other tools utilized by writers and artists. You know - when they write a catchy song with an unsympathetic narrator, calling it, "Sympathy for the Devil." They expect you to "get" it.

Neil Young - he has a notable solo career, and played with a famous, successful band; you might wanna look him up if you don't recognize the name - once gave an interview in which he was asked why he didn't sell the rights to his music to advertisers, when his colleagues and bandmates did. His answer was succinct and fantastic: "When I'm writing lyrics like, 'Four dead in Ohio,' I'm not thinking about laundry detergent."

I'm not saying that you can't choose rock, pop, country, ska or whatever else you want to for your campaigns. I'm saying, be aware when you're doing the equivalent of selling detergent on the backs of the bodies of unarmed college students, shot to death on a college campus.

Sincerely,
American consumers (who recognize that your campaign will NOT be the new Chevy "Like a Rock" ads)

Knee Deep

We were visiting my oldest daughter's house, getting ready for church on a Sunday morning. My youngest walked out of the bedroom in her church outfit, and her older sister made a noise of alarm - "AAHHHH!" She frequently despairs when faced with the fashion choices of her family, but I couldn't see anything wrong with the way her sister looked. I mean, she was dressed for church, not even in her "grubbies."

"What?" I asked.

"Her knees!"

Well, OK, the dress hit above her knees, but she wasn't flashing. Thinking that she was worried that the dress was too short, I said, "She's wearing leggings."

"NO! They bend backwards!" - in a tone of horror.

I sometimes wonder if my family has been paying attention for, well, pretty much their whole lives. Her sister was a teen - had she never looked at her legs before?

"Yeah, they do. She has my knees. Haven't you noticed?"

My daughter and I both have knees that bow backwards - our legs are shaped like parentheses. In order to have them look "straight," we have to bend our knees slightly. My daughter's might look a bit more obvious because her legs dimple over her knees, but the curve is virtually identical. How had my oldest never noticed this? On either of us?

"Can't she do something about that?"

"Well, we could try a complete knee replacement, but I'm not sure that would work. Maybe we'll find out when we're old."

My oldest is a very sweet, well intentioned human being. But when something offends her sense of order, she gets rattled, and how things look is very important to her.

Of course, my youngest and I have a diferent frame of reference. We have to make these knees work. They not only bow backward, but inward - we're "knock kneed."

Yes, our legs look like the letter X from behind, and the letter C from the side.

You know that walk that women do, where they cross one foot in front of the other as they step, and it looks elegant? Yeah; we will never be able to do that.

As a teen, I knew that I had "bad knees," the kind that hurt when a storm was coming, and might seize up or collapse while I was roller skating. Falling on my right knee (off of a horse) when I was 13 didn't help. I sounded (and often felt) middle aged, but what are you gonna do? You have the body you were born with.

I never understood it when people said - and they sometimes did, as my oldest daughter did again, "How can you stand that?" Easy; there's no choice. What sense would it make going through life being disgusted or aghast, by your own body, every single day? That would be far more miserable than my knees made me.

After I had surgery on my feet, I had to learn to walk again, and everything felt wrong. Plus, putting my feet where they were "supposed" to be made my knees literally smack into each other. I watched my daughter walk; her knees glide past each other, always touching but never smacking. I couldn't figure out how to make my feet and knees and everything else work properly. ("These Feet Were Made For Walking")

I pretty well have it figured out now, I think. I suspect that I've taken on a "cowboy who's been too long in the saddle" wide legged walk, but that doesn't bother me.

Howdy, Partner.

I'm walkin' here!

I Told You So

I try to avoid saying, "I told you so." I don't necessarily need other people to know that I was right; I can just be glad that I was.

Sometimes, though, I feel a distinct urge to point it out - mostly when I think others were condescending, especially if they missed something that I thought was obvious.

The subject of bottled water is one of those subjects that prompts me to say, "I told you so."

I was a young adult when bottled water started to gain popularity. Some people laughed at the very idea. "They're selling water! Who'd be stupid enough to buy water?"

Of course, the way to counter that is to convince people that the cleanest, most available water in history is tainted. When I'd ask people why they bought bottled water, they'd tell me how it was filtered, from special springs, so much cleaner than tap water.

I never really understood people who were total water snobs.

I horrified my assistant director once, when I was in a murder mystery. The theater was small, and the only water fountain was in the audience area. The performers shared restrooms with the audience (their door was at the east end of the hallway, and ours was at the west end), so we couldn't use them during intermission. We also couldn't use them, unless it was an emergency, during the last half hour before the show started. I had a water bottle, and I frequently refilled it from the restroom sink, the only sink in the theater.

One night, my water was empty just after the show started. I never like to be without water. Since I couldn't go to the water fountain, and didn't have time to go to the restroom before I had to be onstage, I asked the assistant director, who doubled as the backstage manager, to fill it for me, so that it would be waiting during intermission. "I can't go out to the fountain," she said. "The show's started."

"Yeah, I know. Just go to the restroom."

"The restroom?" The horror in her voice was clear.

"Yeah. That's what I do."

"You don't want to drink restroom water!"

"It's not from the toilet or anything."

"Don't you want to wait until intermission, when I can go to the fountain?"

"No, I don't. I want it waiting here when I come offstage."

The conversation did not go any better as it continued. She was scandalized. She finally browbeat me into waiting until intermission, because she was sure that I'd "feel better" if I had water from the fountain. I was sure that I'd feel better if my water was waiting for me, but I didn't want to keep arguing.

I told a friend about the incident weeks later. "What, does she think that there's a special pipe just for the fountain, one that comes straight from the Alps, and all the other pipes come from the sewer?"

My friend was on the AD's side. "But restrooms are dirty."

"Water straight out of the faucet is dirty?"

"Well, you know, there's germs all over the bathroom."

"Have you ever heard of anyone getting sick by brushing their teeth in their bathroom? It doesn't happen. And even if surfaces were germy, are those germs going up inside the faucet? Because that's the only place that the water touches before it goes in my cup or water bottle." Yeah, germs will multiply where they land, but how are they gonna land inside the faucet?

She looked uncomfortable. "The fountain's water is refrigerated."

Three decades after its introduction, we were pretty clear that bottled water often was tap water, and people talked about convenience, or how it was better for you than soda, but that was not the case in the mid 1980s. Back then, I also ran up against a figurative brick wall when discussing the disposal of millions of plastic bottles.

"Can't people just carry a Thermos, and refill it?" I asked a significant number of people. (Note: a Thermos was an insulated, portable liquid container, originally made from metal with a glass insulating layer. Later, they were made of plastic, with foam insulation. They always had a lid that doubled as a cup, with a little, teacup style handle. Generations of men took them to work, and kids took them to school.) This virtually always resulted in an explanation of how special and filtered bottled water was. You apparently couldn't just pack tap water.

"What about all the waste?" I said. "You can go through dozens of disposable bottles, or refill one."

"You can recycle the single use ones," people would sniff at me, condescendingly thinking what a hick I was.

"Sure, you can. But how many people will?"

"Most of them, I'm sure."

And you know what? Most people didn't, and don't. For at least 15 years, the alarm has been raised - "The Earth is drowning in discarded plastic! Plastic bottles alone could circle the Earth's equator multiple times!" Estimates are that there will soon be more plastic than fish in the ocean.

You can now buy the widest assortment of portable liquid containers ever available: tall, short, insulated, non-insulated, with spouts, with straws, rigid sides, soft sides. They're in just about every store. Fountains often have a spot specifically designed for refilling water bottles.

And yet, we drown in discarded, unrecycled, single use plastic.

I told you so, back in the 80s.

It's Always Something

My brother is 15 years older than I am; he moved away when I was young. I knew the name of the town he lived in, and the state, but not much else about his home. I was in 8th grade when Mt. St. Helens erupted. The next time my brother came to visit, he brought me a jar of ash that looked and felt like gray flour.

"Were you close to the eruption?" I worried. "It's in a whole different state," he told me. "I was a long ways away."

When I got older, I found out that he'd fudged that answer a bit; while truthful, it was sugar coated. That other state was just across the river, and while he was out of the line of sight for Mt. St. Helens, he was close enough that ash fell like rain over his home, his car, his town. Plus, the day before the eruption, he'd been inside the blast zone. Almost as distressing, from his home - from pretty much his whole town - he was in sight of two more dormant volcanoes.

"Doesn't that make you nervous? How do you sleep at night?" I fretted. I adore my brother, and wondered why he chose to live somewhere so "dangerous."

At that point, he hit me with some significant wisdom. He shrugged, and said, "It's always something." And do you know what? It is.

Recently, Kilauea, on the Big Island of Hawaii, went from a picturesque, photogenic window into an active volcano to a destructive one, with huge lava flows ruining houses and roads, causing evacuations, emitting toxic gasses. In the online news coverage, there were comments from people saying things like, "Why do they even allow anyone to live there?" The implication was that the government should stop people from living anywhere that there might be danger, to themselves or to their property.

I can't believe that anyone would think that people should be controlled that tightly. Think about it; if people can't live anywhere that there might be a disaster, we have to abandon vast areas. Can't live near volcanoes; they might erupt. So, pretty much any island is now off limits, as is the Pacific Northwest portion of the United States, where my brother lives. A significant portion of the world's mountains are dormant or extinct volcanoes. Yellowstone National Park is part of a "super volcano" - let's empty out Montana, Idaho, Wyoming.

And speaking of the Pacific, you can't live withing 30 miles or so of the ocean, if you're being careful. Tsunamis can come almost without warning, and wipe out whole cities. You can't live near the Atlantic, or the Gulf of Mexico, either - hurricanes!

You can't live in the Midwest - Tornado Alley! You can't live in most of the American Southwest - drought could kill you, as can creatures that bite and sting. Don't go near the Sierras - earthquakes! The San Andreas Fault! And how many of the huge cities of the Southwest can exist without air conditioning and imported water?

And floods - man, you can hardly get away from flood zones, if the right circumstances arise. Here where I am, in the high mountain desert, even a sprinkling rain can cause devastating flash floods.

We don't have a monopoly on floods. Right now, there's severe flooding a couple thousand miles away from me, in Maryland.

Gracious, I live in a place where earthquakes, floods and drought are frequent occourrences. Every summer, someone dies of exposure in the desert; every winter, someone freezes to death on the mountains. How do I manage?

Of course, I can't go many other places, either. Between insect borne illness, carnivorous animals, sandstorms, monsoons, extreme cold, extreme heat, scarcity of water, scarcity of crops, viruses, bacteria, fungus, and the crime and homicide rate of large cities, it's hard to find a risk free spot anywhere on the planet. We'd all be crowded into a few square miles, even if we could avoid those obvious risks, and that brings risks of another kind.

That's the point, of course. Even if we try to eliminate the obvious risks, something else will get us. And none of us will live forever, anyway.

It truly is always something.

Don't let it get to you.

Bookish

More than once, I've served as one of the leaders in the nursery at church, spending just over two hours every Sunday with children ages 18 months to 3 years. We're supposed to have play time, story time, snack time, singing time, activity (coloring, etc.) time, clean up time, and a "waiting for parents" activity like blowing bubbles for the kids to chase.

It's busy. It can be loud. It's definitely high maintenance - someone usually wants held, there's frequent crying and/or hitting, dirty diapers and/or trips to go potty down the hall in the restroom. The kids are adorable, but it's a lot of work.

Consequently, I like anything that makes the job easier. For instance, the children are more likely to listen to their scripture story and answer questions like, "Who created animals?" if they're also eating a snack, so I deliver the lesson during snack time.

Easygoing kids also make my life so much easier. I love all the nursery kids, but I appreciate the sunny, cooperative ones a wee bit more.

One day, we had a visitor, a two year old who was visiting her grandparents, members of our congregation. During play time, she got a stack of board books, and sat by herself, quietly paging through a book, then setting it down to choose another one.

I watched her, thinking two things: 1. It's so nice to have a happy, self contained child in class. No crying, screaming, shoving, hitting, taking toys, needing all the adults' attention - a child like that is very nice to have in class. 2. She reminded me of myself and my own children, who spent hours with books, from the time that they sat up by themselves.

Just as I was thinking how happy it made me to see such a happy, self contained child, the other leader looked at her, frowned and sighed, and said, "It always makes me so sad to see children like that."

Sad? Children "like that"? Was there something that I didn't know about? Was she sick? Was there something going on with her family, something I didn't know about - illness, job loss, some other kind of loss?

I asked, "Like what?"

"Children who don't mix with the other children, children who sit by themselves instead of joining in. It's so sad."

Wow.

OK, if this was an older child, one who wanted desperately to join in but was too frightened, or who'd been deliberately rejected, yes, that would be sad. I don't think that two year olds are capable of that kind of thinking, though. They do what they want to do, regardless of how the other toddlers feel about it. She was doing what made her happy, and what made her happy was to be by herself with a stack of books.

The idea of someone deliberately choosing to separate from noise and rowdiness to read is so ordinary, so expected, to me, that I forget that it might not look that way to everyone.

The nursery incident reminded me of a time when my husband and I stopped by my mother's house. We were still dating; it was a time when he didn't know my mother that well yet, apparently.

We came by Mom's house (going in the back door without knocking, because in my parents' day, family and good friends went to the back door; only strangers and salespeople went to the front door). I don't remember why we went by, just that it only took about 15 minutes. Mom was sitting in her favorite chair reading when we came in. She rested the book on her lap while we talked to her, then began reading again as we left. This was a completely ordinary interaction with my mother, and, frankly, with me.

It unnerved my husband. "What's wrong with your mom?"

"Nothing."

"Something has to be."

"You just saw Mom! She's fine!" I mean, she wasn't weeping, or sneezing, or coughing, or in a cast, or bruised, or giving any other indication that there was cause for concern. She hadn't been gruff or angry; she was cheerful and pleasant. I could not imagine where he'd gotten the very odd idea that something was wrong.

He was sure that something was wrong. As time went on, and the encounter was now days in the past, he seemed to be getting more and more upset, as I continued to assure him that nothing was wrong. I was completely at a loss to figure out what had him tied in knots.

Finally, he verbalized it (his communication skills are not fantastic). "If my mother was sitting alone in a silent house, something would be really wrong!" She'd either be very angry, or very sad, he said. Plus, she'd expect her loved ones to know, or find out, why, and take steps to fix it. Plus, he was sure that breezing in and out in a few minutes was more offensive than never stopping by, and the fact that Mom hadn't jumped out of her chair to offer to make us something to eat had to be a bad sign.

Whoa, there; cool your jets. "None of that is true of my mother."

"Of course it is. That's how people are."

Au contraire. I assured him that alone in a silent house was my mother's normal state of being, that she was happy as a clam, and she hated to play hostess; short visits were good. Plus, given the fact that we'd come by unannounced, expecting her to drop her book and entertain and feed us, especially for an extended period of time, would have been very rude, and made her miserable.

He was convinced, for quite a while, that I was just too self absorbed to know what my mother wanted; when he finally conceded that I was right about this, he still found it to be "very abnormal." (Which is funny, because that's exactly what I thought of his interpretation.)

Of course, having had children together, we're also occasionally baffling to, and baffled by, our children.

Our teenage daughter once took a book to a church dance, and sat over in the corner or out in the foyer reading during the dance. She thought that, if people really liked her, they'd notice that she was missing, come hunt her down, make her put away the book, and insist that she dance with them. The fact that everyone had left her alone to read her book had her in tears, convinced that nobody liked her.

Oh, dear.

"Honey, reading a book at a social occasion is the clearest possible way of saying, 'Go away and leave me alone. I don't want to be here.' If you want to spend time with people, you have to put the book away and join in, on your own!"

She was convinced, as children are, that I had to be wrong. "No! That's not what it says!"

"Yes, it does. Any time I step away from a party or event to read, it's because I want to be alone. I'd be furious if someone came along and insisted that I go back."

"That's because you're an alien!"

I repeated that yes, pulling out a book in a social situation was the equivalent of holding a sign that said, "Go away." We talked about the fact that it's a really bad idea to set up tests to try to determine if people like you ("If they like me, they will do this..."). It's a bad idea to expect that people who like you (or people who don't) can read your mind. A person who will try to tell you what to do and how to behave, making you stop what you're doing to do what they want you to do, is a controlling, unsympathetic person, and you should never wish for one or more of those in your life.

"If you want to dance, dance! By yourself, with your friends, ask a guy to dance. Don't put it all on other people. Talk to them, and more importantly, listen to them. Do not hide out and hope that they'll hunt you down. And if you don't want to dance, don't go to a dance! Stay home."

She was sure that I was wrong about this. After hearing the same basic thing from at least 4 other people, she conceded that I might be right, but still thought it was "weird."

Oh, dear. Human interaction: what's "sad" is that what one person hates is exactly what another person craves.

I will not feel loved if you get between me and my book.

When You've Gotta Go

There used to be a Pepto Bismol commercial that started with a nervous man saying, "I'm here to talk to you about... diarrhea. Don't change the channel!" That's kind of how I feel right now. I'm going to talk about public restrooms. Please don't leave.

I'm going to let you know, too, right up front, that I'm going to be talking about how other countries do this better than we do.

On the one hand, I tend to dislike and dismiss people who whine that this or that place is better than here - wherever here is. It's pretentious, and begs the question, "Then why aren't you there?"

On the other hand, something that's far more annoying, and damaging, is clinging to an idea or practice that doesn't work, just because it's "ours," and "this is how we do things here." The inability to assess, learn from, and implement new ideas is crippling, personally and societally.

So let's talk about how other countries handle public restrooms better than we do.

Let's start with the name. We call these rooms "restrooms," but there's no resting being done in them. It's a ridiculous, inaccurate euphemism, because we're apparently too embarrassed to discuss the fact that we have bodily functions. It makes us, collectively, look like we're children.

I remember the first time I heard the term "restroom." I was a child, and I was in a restaurant with my family. We didn't eat out often, so this was not an ordinary occurrence; I wasn't used to the way things worked. My mother got up and left the table, which puzzled me, especially when she didn't come right back.

"Where's Mom?" I asked Dad.

"She's in the restroom."

A whole room for resting? That sounded great. As a kid I didn't take naps (I make up for that now), but I've always been easily exhausted by crowds, noise, excessive human interaction (even when it's positive and fun), so it was easy for me to imagine that Mom had just reached the point that she needed a room in soothing blues and greens, with soft music, chaises and cold compresses. I mean, who doesn't? But at a restaurant? In the middle of lunch?

"Could I go, too?"

"Do you have to?"

"Well, I don't have to, but I could."

I was so disappointed. The "restroom" was a tiny room with two toilet stalls and a sink, in faded white paint. No potted plants, no gentle flower fragrance, no resting. Just cramped toilet stalls in gunmetal gray.

We make fun of other countries' euphemisms - oh, those silly British and their "water closets." Hey, it's a tiny room with plumbing - "water closet" is a far more accurate description than "restroom."

Most other countries get it right - if you need to tend to your bodily elimination functions, you ask for the toilets, or look for the sign that says "toilet." Straightforward, no childish snickering, the way humans should act.

The other obvious way in which other countries get it right is their stall doors and walls. Last year, we took a trip that took us across 8 countries, and do you know what every non-US nation had? Actual doors and walls in their stalls, as in up to the ceiling, down to the floor, doors that close fully. Genius!

The most obvious advantage is that they didn't have to close the facilities for cleaning, no matter what sex the janitor was. My children mock my bladder, and tell me that I have the bladder of a two year old, because I need toilet facilities frequently. I tell them that they can talk to me after their bladder has been squashed by repeated pregnancies, as well as fibroids up to the size of a cantaloupe. But the thing is, I have been deeply inconvenienced on numerous occasions by really needing a restroom, and having it closed for cleaning. AUGH! The first time I was in a public restroom while a man was cleaning it, I was surprised and then delighted. It was fantastic! He didn't have to wait for me, and I didn't have to wait for him! Woo hoo!

Another plus is the added privacy. I remember being seriously stressed when I was in a fast food restaurant during a road trip, in one of those towns that is two hours or more from the next town, so the facilities are packed. We were in year 5 of an extensive drought, with reservoirs and rivers dry, and serious water rationing in place. A woman using the toilet insisted that those of us waiting run the faucets in the sink, so that we couldn't hear what she was doing. I wanted to scream, "We KNOW what you're doing! Especially if the sound of water will muffle it! We're all here to do the exact same thing! There's only two real purposes for this room! If you're doing something not intended, please find somewhere else to do it!" But I didn't. I just watched the water run down the drain as my blood pressure rose. There is no reason to waste finite resources because you are embarrassed by ordinary bodily functions. Solid walls and doors will let those people avoid the waste.

That leads me to a third advantage - it's not soundproof, but it's a whole lot harder to hear or smell what your neighbor is doing, which should make both of you more comfortable. And no more worrying about how awkward the open row of urinals is.

Yet another advantage, in my opinion, is that it should also end the need for sex segregated facilities. If I, and everyone else, are in our own room, there's no reason for us to worry about who's in the next room. No more worrying about the fact that the line in the ladies' room is always longer than the line in the men's room. No more stressing about which restroom transgender people should use. (Having spent their lives with enclosed facilities, Europeans probably think that Americans sound silly arguing about that.)

I really have little patience for the reasons people have given me to not like full doors and walls.

One is, "But I also want to arrange my clothes, and fix my hair and makeup." Fix your clothes behind the door, and quit worrying that fixing your hair and makeup are acts that you must hide from others. Seriously.

"You don't want things totally enclosed like that, because child molestation and sexual assaults will go up!" Wow; if you seriously believe that the only reason people are not assaulting others is the gaps in stall walls, you have a view of humanity that deeply concerns me. You are also advocating a society in which it is impossible, and inadvisable, to have any privacy in public, and I am not a fan. You're also overlooking the fact that many public restrooms, in places like parks, end up closed or with restricted hours because of frequent prostitution taking place there, with the gaps in the stalls. I'm not making this up; it happens in my area more often than I want to think about. Trashy behavior does not depend on walls.

Plus, many foreign restrooms have a small fee for usage, and with that, they often pay attendants. There will be far fewer shenanigans of any kind with watchful eyes in place. (It also means that the rooms are comparatively spotless and well stocked.)

"But the construction will cost more." I don't think that cancels out the plusses, but if you do, again, usage fees. Plus, drywall is cheap, and doesn't have to be custom manufactured.

Yes, finding coins in order to pee can be annoying, but obviously, there are advantages. And, you can install card readers, like those on parking meters.

The only thing other countries don't do better: water fountains next to the restrooms. The only time I have ever been more dehydrated on a vacation than I was this last trip, I required medical attention. Water, people! Free water! You have the plumbing already in place! Most of the restroom sinks were even too shallow for me to refill my water bottle in them.

There you have it: the recipe for perfect public toilet facilities. Listen up, America!

Kids Your Age

One of the things that I didn't understand about adults when I was a child was their assumption that all kids would, or should, get along.  I hated it when they'd pitch some event to me by saying, "There will be kids your age there!" Then they'd look either expectant or pleased, obviously thinking that they'd just provided me with instant friends. It was baffling.

I wondered how they had forgotten what it was like to be a kid. Did all kids their age automatically get along with them? I assumed that the answer had to be "no." Then why would they assume that all kids my age would like me?

I've never mixed easily or well with other people. It's a skill that eludes me. And, especially as a kid, I was the odd, badly dressed one with body odor who didn't laugh at the standard jokes; no one really gravitated toward me. If I was going to get along with other people, they were generally adults, who liked my rule following, studious nature.

Saying, "There will be kids your age" translated to me as, "It will be really uncomfortable, and kids will make fun of you."

When I'm an adult, I thought, I'll remember, and I won't assume that all kids will love each other, just because they're kids.

So, of course, my children frequently wanted to know, "Will there be kids my age there?"

Again, I was baffled. And my older kids especially were annoyed when I'd say, "There will be kids there," but couldn't specify that there would be kids their ages there. My homeschooled younger two were used to hanging out with kids who might be a mix of three or four years older to three or four years younger, but that's not what life is like in public schools. Two of my high school best friends are three months older than I am, but they were in the grade above me. Several of my other best friends were between 7 and 10 months younger than I was, but because they were in my grade, they counted as "my age," whereas the kids a grade above me were "older."  My older kids were frequently annoyed that there were no kids in their exact grade or their exact number - age 7, 10, 15, whatever - at any given function.

That's OK, I thought. They'll grow up and get over it, and realize that age is not really a big deal. (And to an extent, they did, because most people do.)

When I was in my late 20s or early 30s, I was talking to a friend from church who was probably in her 70s. She had been gone when the leaders announced an event - I think it was a dinner - for our congregation, so I and another friend, a few years older than I, were making sure that she knew about it. "That sounds fun," she said. "And I don't mean to be rude, but do you know - will there be people my age there?"

I probably looked stunned. She was afraid that she'd hurt my feelings, I think, because she was very quick to explain - "I mean, you young people are nice. I enjoy being around young people; it keeps me young. But sometimes, I just need to be around people my own age. They understand me. They've experienced the same things I've experienced, and they remember the same things I do."

"Oh, of course." I assured her that there would be people her age there, and sincerely hoped that there would be. Then I went home pondering the fact that here was obviously another instance where I'd interpreted the rest of humanity incorrectly. Or had I? What if other people her age didn't feel the same way?

I watched people. I asked people. People of different ages. And holy cow, there are a significant number of people who feel most comfortable with other people close to their own age. And the people I asked thought that this was obvious.

It just had never been my personal experience. Who knew it was everyone else's? I mean, what about all that talk about age being just a number?

It's just me, isn't it?