Looking Younger Every Day

Last week was not the best week for the Mom of No- it could have been worse, of course, but it was not a sparkling diamond in the crown of 2017.  For the first four days of the week, I was home sick with some nasty respiratory crud which resulted in a horrible cough that could probably be heard for miles around my abode.   Finally, last Thursday, I felt well enough to venture from home and go to work.

As I sat at the kitchen table, eating my usual toasted raisin and cinnamon English muffin for breakfast, I felt something crunchy moving around in my mouth.  That's odd, I thought; these muffins are usually rather soft.  Maybe part of the crust was a little extra-toasted.  My brain still wasn't functioning at its optimal speed, so it took a few seconds for the message to get from my tongue to my brain: that crunchy bit wasn't English muffin.  That was part of a lower front tooth.

Awww, crap, I thought.  Just what I need.

I was informed by the dentist's office that they had an available appointment at 3 PM, which I gladly took.  My brain was working rapidly on producing extreme dental scenarios in which the rest of the tooth broke off at some point before dental rescue could take place, initiating much uncomfortable and expensive dental work. As far as I was concerned-and I am no fan of going to the dentist- 3 PM couldn't come fast enough.

Finally, after a day of obsessing over the hole in my tooth, I was in the dental chair being prepped by the assistant. While we were talking, a young man walked in, greeted me, said he'd be back in a minute, and walked out.

Who's that? I asked the dental assistant, thinking to myself that whoever that young man is, he looks like he's in high school. 

That's the new dentist, she said. He's going to come back in a minute and look at your tooth.

I was taught as a kid that it is rude to ask about how old people are, but I really had to know, and the Grandma of No wasn't around to give me a Mom Look.  I turned around and looked at the assistant and asked her.  I think he's 28, she said.  He really does look young.

Yes.  I am old enough to be my dentist's mother.  Even more than having a daughter about to graduate from high school or a son who is six inches taller than I am, that makes me feel like I am getting old.  The entire time he was working on my poor busted front tooth, my brain abandoned the "worst case dental scenario" thought process and started working on "This guy is a dentist and he is young enough to be your son and that is really giving me some angst". 

I probably need to start getting used to it, because sometimes the new employees at work look really young to me, and then I find out that they were born two years after I graduated from college and I'll think, hey, young whippersnapper, I've been working longer than you've been alive.  Or I'll say something about the Soviet Union, or that a certain 80's song was the theme of my high school class, or that I had to type college papers on a typewriter, and I start suspecting that the other person, who was probably born after I got my first e-mail address, is thinking, wow, this woman is practically ancient history.

The Son of Never Stops Eating, who is currently obsessed with The Simpsons, asked me several months ago if I had ever seen The Simpsons.  Sure, I told him.  I used to watch that show when I was in college.

Wow, Mom, he said, sounding impressed and awed.  You're older than Homer Simpson!

Yes.  I'm older than Homer Simpson,  I remember life before the Internet, and I'm old enough to be my dentist's mother, but hopefully I still got a lot of good years left in me.