Dear Abby's Hair and Me

Cover of The Best of Dear Abby"

When I was a kid, I used to read “Dear Abby.”

Who am I kidding? I still read it.

Back then, I would see Dear Abby’s swooping old-lady hair in her picture and I’d say to myself, “Self, don’t ever have, no matter how old you get, ‘Dear Abby’ hair.”

Well.

Dear Abby did her hair (or more likely, had her hairdresser do her hair in regular weekly appointments) in a bouffant. And that was old-fashioned … then.

But what’s old-fashioned now?

Jeans. Neither of my kids wear jeans. And I live in mine.

I can’t figure out how to work my own TV. (Granted, it has 5 frigging remotes.) I have to ask my son, who, as he’s turning it on and getting to the right “output,” always patiently shows me how to do it, but I have no intention of knowing how to do it next time either.

Phone calls. It absolutely never occurs to my kids to use their cell phones as phones. Text, text, text.

Printing things out on paper. Often, articles on websites and, especially, blogs aren’t even set up to be printed out on paper anymore. (If you aren’t careful, that cute little article will print out as 27 pages of gibberish.)

My kids, teenagers, use “snail mail” so rarely they still have to ask which side, left or right, the stamp goes on.

Checks. I am NOT the old lady paying for groceries in the supermarket line by check. However, I still do pay most bills that way, except for the ones that insist on being paid online. Are my payments like one of three that the companies get by paper check?

Lord, I’ll have spidery handwriting and be peering over my steering wheel before I know it.

I'm getting old, aren't I?