Conversation at work

Sometimes when I'm at work I take a break from beating small children and explaining the "Copy/Paste" function over and over again to computer users. During these breaks, sometimes I will deign to converse with other library staff members.

Yesterday I chatted with the 19-yr-old working the circulation desk and mentioned that the Spice Girls were getting back together. I forgot, when I said this, that my coworker friend was probably still wearing diapers when the Spice Girls were popular. Silly me.

Me: "That's just so funny. When I was in college the Spice Girls were this huge big deal."

Girl: "Woah, wait. You were in college way back then??"

Me: "I was a freshman in '97, and that's when they were big."

Girl: "Seriously? I didn't realize you were that old!"

Me: "Okay . . . "

Girl: "I thought you were like 25, maybe."

Me: "Well, I'm 27. Which isn't that different from 25."

At this point she started looking really uncomfortable, like I'd forgotten where I was or had just asked her to change my Depends.

Girl: "No, sure, of course it's not." (Don't get her angry! Don't get her angry! Old people are notoriously unstable!)

Me: "I'm actually turning 28 in a couple of months. So . . . menopause should be kicking in any day now."

By this point a guy who looked about 30 had come over to check out some stuff. At that last statement he looked like he didn't know whether to laugh at my joke or Run Away Really Fast before Something Bad Happened.

Girl: "You just -- I mean, you don't look that old. You look younger."

Me: "Thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

Then I placed a call to the agency that supplies me with young vestal virgin blood, which is what I bathe in so I can pass myself off as 25. I finally got their number from my mom after months of begging.

But I can't really blame the girl. When I was 19 I didn't think 25-yr-old single Mormon girls existed--or if they did they were sent off to some Failure Farm so as not to throw off everyone else's groove. So for this girl it was probably the equivalent of listening to her grandma talk about the guy she hooked up with after a round of Jello shots the night before.

Posted in: dating or not so much