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A Day in the Life of...

Membership into AAA

December 2008
by Deborah Lipsky

When you think of the phrase "aging gracefully", it sort of is an oxymoron. It seems there is nothing graceful about a “senior moment" or those menopausal moments were your husband swears you have an evil twin sister named Godzilla just because sometimes his breathing irritates the daylights out of you. I vowed to never grow old and believed that age was just a state of mind.

While on tour this month I met my co-coordinator at the airport where she rented a car and drove me to my seminar locations. Val is a bit older than me but chooses nice SUV's when she can as a rental vehicle. Imagine our horror when the only car available was a Grand Marquis, or as I refer to them, the "Granny mobile".  As soon as we sat inside I noticed bench seats and how huge it was overall. "Man" I said to Val, "I haven't ridden in a big car with a bench seat since 1970". To make it more amusing Val's head barely came up over the steering wheel and she is taller than me!  We couldn't figure out to how to adjust the seat height. I offered to splurge if she stopped stop by a hardware store to get her a couple of bricks for the gas and brake pedals.  This car was like Goliath and Val and I like David and David's other brother David [for those of you who remember the Bob Newhart Show......Darrell and his other brother Darrell] with a big V-8 that lurched forward with just the slightest pressure on the gas. Great way to get whip lash...accidentally lurch forward and then in a panic moment slam your foot on the brake.  I endured some motorized bucking bronco action.  Backing up was like maneuvering the Queen Mary out of port, and a couple times our "Queen Mary's" tires bounced off the curb.  I chided Val and told her she wasn't driving like a senior citizen till she drove down the highway with her turn signal left on. Maybe she should practice on the Buick Century, the sport coupe model compared to the Grand Marquis.  We had a good laugh.

On my seminar tour this past week Val was able to rent a Subaru. I forgot what model it was but it was a "Minnie Me" of the SUV. It looked so cute and tiny, and I referred to it as the "Barbie car". Well, we were on our way to Boston driving down I-84 in CT when simultaneously we both were thinking "Gee, the highway is really noisy". I was also thinking that this is the first car I have been in where the AC goes from back to front but chocked it up to the foreign engineering.  As we traveled another 5 minutes all of a sudden I heard Val say over and over again "Oh no...Oh no...Oh no". She immediately pulled into the break down lane. As she was doing that I noticed her fixation with looking in the rear view mirror. I looked back to see what she was so intense about and realized  we had been driving on the highway with the Subaru's hatch wide open and Val's luggage creeping ever so dangerously close to the edge. Her big red suitcase looked like it was suicidal perched precariously close to the bumper. This ordeal  sort of reminded me of those 1970's TV commercials for Samsonite luggage where gorillas toss, stomp, and try to trash the suitcase before it got to baggage claim [BTW I am not dating myself....I am just reciting historical facts].

That scare caused me to take inventory to see or confirm that I am not getting older and am still 20 something in my mind. Remember when we used to laugh at old people when we were so young? Do you recall what was so funny?  I am not getting older. It is just that they are making staircases steeper than they used to and newspaper print got much smaller.  When I travel I never leave home without my ABA program [antacids, Beano, and aspirin].  Hmmmm, wonder if I am really close to being a senior citizen after all? The legal age for that is 50 or so it was on my birthday card from the AARP this year wanting to offer me a membership 3 years early. That is a sign of aging......pondering the thought of obtaining a fake ID to get senior discounts.  Also "Metamucil" and "no toilet paper" should never be used in the same sentence....... the "F" word to me at age 47 refers to "fiber".

The more I write this article the more I doubt my 20 something mindset. I have been known to frantically wander the parking lot pushing the panic button on my car key hoping my lost car will tell me where it is. While on the flight to Bangor the stewardess was explaining the safety briefing before takeoff and started with "If you haven't ridden in an automobile prior to 1968 please pay attention to how the seat belt fastens". I remembered chuckling to myself thinking that I already knew how to use them as I used them a lot when I rode in my parents’ car as a child. Yes, I am having an historical accuracy moment. I remember my first camera that used a flashcube and how the C110 film cartridge was a revolutionary moment in photography.  I swore Space Invaders was the best game ever, and I remember my step dad's first cell phone which was as big and as heavy as a brick. Coming home at the airport my soda bottle fell out of my bag. I heard a man call out to me "Mam" and it seemed natural. When did I go from "Miss" to "Mam"?   I guess I am getting up there in age. I no longer even try to fake it when I enter a room and can't for the life of me remember why, and I am adamant to double check that the waitress is really giving me decaf when I go out to eat.

Perhaps I should start a group of the “Autistic Senior Society" but that would make me a ............. Better if I name the organization   "Aging Autistic Association". That would make me a member of triple A in good standing.

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