The Accidental Octogenarian

Posted On October 9, 2017

I’m officially 80 years old.

I must be. There’s no other explanation for what happened this week.

There I was, walking down the hall before school, like any other day, innocently heading to the teacher’s lounge to score me some of that gourmet Folgers or Yuban community coffee (whatever was on sale at Fareway this week) when I saw a co-worker who I thought looked especially nice. So I decided to pay her a compliment.

Here’s where things got weird.

I opened my mouth, and what I heard myself say was:

“I like your blouse!”

She accepted my compliment with a smile and I continued on my walk down the hall, but by now full-on confusion had set in.

Did I just use the word blouse?

I hit rewind in my mind and replayed the conversation. Yep, yep, there it was, sneaking into my vocabulary when it didn’t think I was paying attention. Which, apparently, I wasn’t.

Blouse? I literally cannot think of one time I have ever used the word blouse to describe someone’s shirt. Perhaps I have used the word top on occasion, when I’d been around my mom a little too long, but blouse?

This is what I picture when I hear the word blouse.

(Look at these sassy women, thinking they’re all that because they’re on the cover of a Vogue pattern unlike all those sorry Butterick or McCall’s pattern models.)

This is clearly not what type of shirt my coworker was wearing. There were no puffy sleeves or neck bow, and there definitely wasn’t a pleat in the front. So why in the world did this word escape from my subconscious?

Now I’m paranoid, afraid to open my mouth for fear that other 80-year-old-woman words will follow. Among my fears are the following phrases:

Your davenport is very comfortable!

Those slacks really flatter your figure.

These trousers are made from the finest polyester.

Could you go to the icebox and get me a bottle of milk?

Where might one purchase a new pocketbook around here?

Don’t be such a square.

Look at that young whippersnapper, fiddling with his mobile phone.

I’m going to ask Blanche if she will tape my stories for me since I will be visiting my grandchildren.

Now that my vocabulary has betrayed me, I’m afraid at what might be coming next. So if you see me trade in my iPhone for a “less complicated” flip phone (Sorry, Mom!) or staring a little too long at the rain bonnets at Walmart, or if I suddenly smell like Werther’s Originals and prune juice, you’ll know that the 80-year-old woman inside me has officially taken control.

Friends, you’d better start hiding your knee-high stockings and crocheted cat pillows…