Two things that happened to me today
Girl today, talking to me after my meeting: So how long does your PhD program take?
Me: Well, this is my fourth year, and I probably have about two more left, so -
Girl (looking confused): Wait, so - wow, you’ve been doing that for a while. How old are you?
Me: I’m twenty nine.
Girl: What? No!
Me: Yeah.
Girl: No, I can’t believe it. You look so much younger!
Me: Um. Thanks. How old are you?
Girl: I’m twenty-two. But you must get that all the time! Like I look at you and I cannot believe that you are twenty-nine. Seriously! Wow. That’s so great. I hope I look like you when I’m twenty nine.*
Me: Thanks. But I think it’s mostly that when like, you dress in jeans and carry a backpack, you look like a student so people think you’re younger than you are.
Girl: No. I think it’s like, when people get old, they get sort of angry and bitter so their faces kind of fall and get all like this (she squishes her face to look angry). But you look so happy it makes you look young!
Me: Do I?
And then the full force of twenty-nine years of accumulated suffering (four of them in grad school!) crashed over me like a wave, and I twisted my face into a grim expression and murdered her where she stood.
No, that didn’t happen. What happened is that I left my meeting and went home, and on my table, I found a piece of junk mail from the American Association of Retired People, and enclosed within it was AN AARP CARD WITH MY NAME ALL FILLED OUT ON IT AND EVERYTHING. And then I decided that this was a message from the universe telling me that I had outlived my usefulness to the community. So I bade farewell to my loved ones, gathered up my meager belongings and trudged out onto an ice floe, where I set myself adrift and waited for sweet, sweet long-awaited death to come.
*I swear to God she seriously said this.
