OLD BALLS!

It’s not even my birthday and I am a little down because I feel like I am getting old. I think a big reason is that my cousin, who is in her second year of university, is staying with us for September while her rental is getting renovated. Now she is a nice girl and I wouldn’t call her a partier, but she is social and she’s making me feel like an “adult” and that sucks.
It all started the first night she was with us when she came upstairs and ask us is she could have some friends over to watch MTV. I fought the urge to say, “why do you watch that junk anyway” and said “Of course, no problem”. Immediately it felt weird to have someone ask me if they could have their friends come over to my house and hang out, but NOT with me. I don’t think I have ever had that happen to me before. So off she goes and about an hour later the door rings, and 3 “kids” walk in, 2 of which I know well, and are really not that much younger than me. So we exchange pleasantries and as they are proceeding to the basement to watch their stories on the tele, I have to ask them if they are all ready to go back to school the next day. What a dumb ass- mom and dad thing to say. I felt so uncool. Meanwhile the future mrs. Brody had an itch to bake earlier in the day, and is just about to pull some fresh muffins out of the oven. The kids comment on how great it smells, and in a way I think they are mocking me that we are making muffins like grandma would while they are gathering to enjoy the latest Teeny bobber series on MTV.

So that’s where it starts, and I’m rattled from that first night and now she is in my head. So the little things are starting to bug me. For example, like any good university student in there first few weeks of the semester, she is out just about every evening gallivanting around, and it depresses me that I am not even awake when she gets home. She tells me she gets in at about 11, and I just can’t fathom that I am so asleep that I don’t even hear her. Luckily we don’t have the rule that she has to wake us up to let us know she is home safe.
The thing is I don’t think of the future Mrs. Brody and I as overly boring people. While it’s nothing like my university days, we are fairly social, and often out of the house doing something. So being my insecure self, when returning from a social event of some sort I have been looking forward to returning to the house to show the young kid that I too have a busy social calendar. But as luck would have it, whenever I get home she is never there to see my triumphant return. I’ve considered sitting around the block in my car, then when she gets back driving up so she sees me come in and I can tell her all about my wild adventures, but that just seems a little too pathetic. So again and again she returns home to find me in front of the TV in my sweat pants (at least I have pants on).

One of the more recent events was last Sunday morning, when ms brody and I were getting out day started and doing some house cleaning (boring) and I noticed that the cuz’s bf stayed the night, as his shoes were in the door way. No big deal at all, I didn’t think twice about it. So we head out to the gym, and return to find that our guests have left the house, but she has left a long note apologizing because they got kicked out of dorm’s at the UofR (where he lives) that night so the bf had to stay over and she is very sorry for not ok’ing that with us and it won’t happen again. Wow. When she returned we tried to explain to her that we didn’t care at all, he could stay there any night, we are cool and hip and all that. She’s like, I told him not to worry, I said your guys weren’t that old. NOT THAT OLD – come on.

And so it continues, with her living in our basement, tying not to disrupt our old person lives, when we are home in the evening, in bed by 10:30, having tea on a Friday night when she is off to the bars, etc.
Not so long ago I was different. I was cool. I was hip. Do the kids even say hip anymore. Not likely.
But I will be ok, in fact I don’t even really want that life anymore, but I just hate to admit it. Makes me feel OLD.

Hey Riders – get your shit together.