Too What for WHAT?

It is a dark and dreary morning. The kind of morning that finds The Prude harrumphing and grousing at a world which is rolling along in a highly unsatisfactory manner and merrily ignoring The Prude and her Disapprovals.

The Prude is so grouchy with the naughty world this morning that she is tempted to spend the rest of this post consulting her Thesaurus and listing synonyms for ‘grouchy’ and ‘naughty’. But she will fight the temptation and actually write a post that progresses, and she hopes you appreciate her perseverance.

DISAPPROVAL OF THE DAY:
TOO OLD?

Humans are born into the world and spend the rest of their lives hearing the phrase ‘You are too old for_________’.  Come with me on a trudge down memory lane, where the phrase ‘too old’ bumped me mercilessly from one stage of life to the next.

-The Prude was happily floating along in her very pregnant mother, 3 weeks overdue and with no intention of going anywhere. Nature said ‘Tough. You are too old for the womb.’ And The Prude was abruptly thrust into a world of bright lights and cold metal.

-The 13-month-old Prude was happily going about performing her duties, clad in her comfy cloth diaper, when her mother said, ‘You are too old for diapers’ and thrust her
onto a cold potty chair.

-The 5-year-old Prude was happily bossing her baby brother and sister, when her parents said, ‘You are too old to stay home anymore’ and thrust her onto a yellow school bus to go to kindergarten where someone else did the bossing.

-The 6th grade Prude and her friend hungrily donned love beads and sashes and granny glasses and went trick-or-treating as hippies. A neighbor said, ‘You girls are too old to trick-or-treat’ and thrust mealy apples into our bags.

-The 13-year-old Prude and her family were on vacation. The hotel said, ‘She is too old to stay for free. You’ll need to pay.’ The Prude’s father thrust his hand in his pockets, and finding them almost empty, cut the vacation short.

-And so it went. The Prude learned that junior high was too old for recess, high school was too old for Nancy Drew, college was too old to be carefree.

-There came a day when her stomach told her she was too old to eat chili dogs, her knees told her she was too old to sit cross-legged on the floor for 3 hours, her brain told her she was too old to memorize large quantities in short periods of time. 

And eventually my entire body will warn me that, while I can still try to hokey pokey, I really am too old for anything but pokey.

Yes, The Prude, without a doubt, disapproves of the phrase ‘Too old’

Yesterday morning The Prude’s uncle was told he was too old for his earthly body, and he was thrust, (albeit gently) into a whole new world, where he was told he would never EVER be told he was too old. Ever again.

But The Prude learned that we are never too old to cry.