Getting old! Too quickly!!!

I am getting old. Far too quickly. I am only 30, but I think I am getting too old.

I'll tell you why. If you are interested, that is. Well, I am going to tell it anyway.

I was travelling to work by train when I chanced upon a conversation between two schoolgirls. Hey, before you write me off as a low-life that eavesdrops on girls, it was more like the conversation dropped on all of us in the 1 metre radius of the girls.

Like a ton of bricks.

They were being loud and giggly in the manner of all schoolgirls since the time...um...since the time girls started going to school! There they were, chatting merrily away, playing with their hair that had been carefully arranged in a disarray.

I am never going to understand that! In my days...God, I sound old! Let me try again.

When I was young...nah, that makes me sound too old too! Hell, I think I am getting old.

Anyway, when I was young, not too long ago, and went to school and college, there was only three ways to handle the mop on your head. You were either what they had in mind when they coined the term "nerd" and therefore always went in for the wet and plastered look.

Or you just brushed your hair in a hurry, and left it looking just about decent.

Or you just let it do its own stuff.

Which it does, by the way. Hair's got a mind of its own, you'd think, the way it simply refuses to lie down the way you want it, and curls and weaves, all on its own!

But I can never really understand the latest trend! They actually arrange their hair into a seeming mass of disarray. They probably spend hours, letting each strand of hair look as unruly as possible, achieving a careless effect with extreme care.

Talk about oxymorons!

Uh oh, I think I'm rambling too much - another sure sign of old age.

So, here were these girls, with their carefully careless hair and all that, talking to each other. I reproduce below snippets of their conversation. Believe me, this is exactly how it went. Well, almost.

One of the girls (we'll call her Mae*) was telling the other (we'll call her Margherita*) "So, I was chilling with Valerie* the other day, right, and Alicia* comes in, and tells us about this cool sale on at Myers, and I am like and she's like 'yeah' and then I am like 'Oh my god' and Valerie is like totalled."

I'll tell you this straightaway, I understood precious little of it. It was almost like another language. I had to take the help of relatively younger people at work to get this translated so that it makes sense.

And that's when I realized I was getting old. If you probably got what she was saying with no external help, I daresay you are still young. But if not..well, join the club. I'm getting old too!

* All names have been changed to protect the identity of the people** involved

** Hope those are not their real names!!!