I like to be in charge of my life.
You can comment about my life. But don’t confuse your comment with control.
I have always been hardheaded. But my intolerance for taking orders has now escalated to a new level, especially in work environments.
When someone with chin pimples tries to boss me around, my gray nerve endings start to fray.
These scenes are most prevalent when dealing with computers.
When I hear, for the 17th time, “Ms. Coner, we talked about this. Why didn’t you follow the link to the blah blah website?”
I want to respond with, “Why didn’t you iron your shirt or comb your hair this morning?”
I don’t want a supervisor who listens to rap while dripping hummus down the front of his faded rock T-shirt during his lunch break.
Here’s a cool fact, though. As the senior in the circle, I can still outwork the kids. I have the time management skills of a well-oiled machine, plus I still have time to wipe their snotty noses.
And so, when a youngster speaks to me in a snippy tone about computer stuff, I somehow refrain from bonking him in the mouth with the mouse. I bite my tongue off to keep from saying something like, “While I discover the definition of a link, you can go brush your teeth. Your breath smells like dead cow.”
Here’s another thing, when young whippersnappers giggle at stoplights, blasting rock from the 1970s while the scent of marijuana wafts through the air, I want to yell out my car window that my geriatric olfactory senses still work.
And by the way, my generation probably invented the roach clip. Do everybody a favor, silly boys. Grow up and fill your life with something more meaningful than smoking weed.
Just to see their eyes pop out of their heads, I might add that I remember when Jimmy Hendrix wrote that song they are blasting. In fact, we were dating at the time. And we often enjoyed spending weekends with the guys from Fog Hat and Def Leopard.
Hoping to get under my skin, one person I know likes to call me an old lady – as if that bothers me.
I happen to love being 56. I am stronger, smarter and more capable now than I have ever been in my life. As a breast cancer survivor, I embrace that term “old lady” with gratefulness and hope that I am here for many more years, to become even more deliciously wrinkled than I already am.
Yep, I am definitely the seasoned chick.
But young ones seek me out when their hearts hurt. They see that I have survived multiple wars. I know a lot about how to live through mistakes.
Sometimes the young pups even treat me like I am Oz.
Now who wouldn’t love that?