Old

As I age, I have a new mantra that I chant to myself. It's "don't act old".

This week I'm staying at a hostel in Hawaii that has a wide range of guests from all over the world and fortunately for me there is no maximum age limit. Hostels suck in a lot of ways (uncomfortable bunk beds, shared bathrooms, wads of hair in showers, lots of wet food in the shared kitchen sink) but are great in a lot of other ways (cheap). Here, although mostly young 20-somethings pace the halls in tiny little bikinis and envy-worthy tans, there are a lot of people even older than me! Everybody's hanging out together and even 72-year-old Perverted Guy joins us on the daily free tours of the island.

Yesterday, on the free shuttle ride to the beach, the driver explained the itinerary, and that she would not be drinking or "partying" so we should all feel free to smoke as much weed and do as many 'shrooms as we wanted on the beach. She'd get us back to the hostel safe. My prude self was horrified to imagine that anybody on that shuttle or in my hostel would ever "do a drug", (hadn't we all just innocently made pancakes and drank coffee together?) but I remembered my mantra and kept my mouth shut. I cringed, uncomfortable for myself but mostly for the two 50-something ladies who sat next to me on the shuttle.

Finally one of them muttered:

"Does this van have enough seatbelts for everybody?"

Is there sun on my face? Because I don't want any sun on my face!!