Part of the aging process involves those "senior moments" we like to joke about and how you occasionally are given an opportunity to see yourself through the eyes of others. Of course there's nothing to do about any of it other than laugh in aging's face -- and appreciate that it beats the alternative. Thanks to our Facebook friend Wendy Cushing for sharing these gems:
Wendy Cushing, a Connecticut teacher on the cusp of turning 50, told us how she went for two x-rays in the span of a week and neither technician asked if she could be pregnant. "Because, really? You look that old," she jokes. She doesn't. We asked for a picture.
This is Wendy. Those x-ray technicians were clearly blind.
Then again, she also drove 40 minutes to a doctor's appointment, sat in the waiting room growing irritated because her name wasn't being called -- and then realized her appointment was for the following week. Slink-out-with-tail-between-legs-time.
Wendy, clearly not having a great week, also proudly produced two gift cards at Bed, Bath and Beyond thinking she was going to get a fabulous bargain, only to have the cashier say, "Um, ma'am, these are for Bath and Body Works." That's right, he called her "ma'am." Oh yeah, and she was in the wrong store.
No worries, Wendy, we feel your pain. Even when you call your kids by the dogs' names or put the phone in the refrigerator, we've got your back.
Readers, please share your funny aging moments with us in the comments below. And lest anyone worry too much, studies have not linked our forgetful moments with anything more serious. Absentmindedness, while time-consuming to find those misplaced car keys, usually stems from lack of attention or focus. It's normal if you can't remember the directions to a place you haven't visited in a long time, but if you get lost walking the block you've lived on for a decade, well, that's something of more concern, Debra Babcock of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke told AARP.
Can't remember names or have them on the tip-of-your-tongue? A 2011 study, published in the journal Brain Research, showed that older participants had to activate more areas of the brain to perform a memory task than the study's younger subjects. "We're all accessing the same brain networks to remember things," said Babcock, "but we have to call in the troops to do the work when we get older, while we only have to call in a few soldiers when you're younger."
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