Gettin' Old

Frequently, I am reminded that I am not as young as I used to be. Usually this reminder will manifest itself in some random pain that has sprung up from lying in one position for too long or seeing a young person who I don't know walking down the street with a hat on sideways and having to fight the urge to tell them to turn their hat so it's straight. Other times it's a little more subtle. I had three example of my aging just this afternoon.

1. The first week of fantasy football was a barn-burner for me. Going into the second Monday night game I was only ahead by a few points and the guy I was facing had Oakland's starting running back, who was fully capable of a piling up enough points to defeat me. He had a great first half and closed the points gap. It was very close. But, as the game dragged on I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I went to bed with the issue still in doubt. I awoke this morning to a text from my fantasy opponent, asking who had won. Neither of us had any idea, because we both fell asleep before the game was over. A few years ago staying up would have been a non-issue. I mean, at least my fantasy opponent has a small kid, what's my excuse? (I won, by the way. I'm sure you were worried.)

2. The names of teams in my fantasy football league are also making me feel old. I've been in the same league with the players for close to a decade. When we first started the naming of teams was a challenge to come up with the funniest, most obscure or crudest name we could think of. It was a collage of Will Ferrell quotes and dirty-sounding innuendos. The team names now? First off, half the guys haven't bothered to change them in years, making the movie references dated. Other people haven't even bothered to think of a name, using the generic entry of: LastName1. The rest have been sterilized from something dirty to something the wife approves of like, "Tim's Dad." The only good news is that while we may not come up with clever names, everyone still knows their stuff. I would hate to be in a league that was both lame and lazy.

3. It used to be that I got really excited when the EastBay catalog showed up. I would flip through it and pick out all the stuff I wanted. Now I'm getting really excited for the IKEA catalog to arrive in the mail so I can see if they still make that couch I had my eye on last fall. Jerseys, shorts and sneakers have been replaced by lamps, bureaus and storage units. It's a bit of a bummer.