Turns out, I'm like, old

I recently traveled to Washington DC for a business trip to meet with a client. My mom's sister Chris and her family live nearby...technically, in a suburb of DC. Charles Town, WV is like 70 miles out of DC but is still considered a DC suburb, even though it's a two-hour drive away. In fact, my uncle Jim said probably 90 percent of the people they know in town commute to DC or the surrounding metro area for work. So, anyway I decided to catch an earlier flight out of Chicago to hang out with them - my aunt and uncle and their two boys, Nick and Josh. Nick is the oldest - he's a senior in high school. I'm not sure if he is 18 yet... I think he is, but he may still be 17. Anyway, you get the picture. And Josh is younger, he's like 13.
 

Tons of things happened on this trip, including me meeting the clients from hell, getting my picture taken by the White House, freezing my butt off in a cold snap of single-digit East Coast weather, and hanging out with my family - playing Pictionary Man with Josh and watching 'Glee.' However, one incident will be the basis of this post, and that is the fact that I learned just how old a twenty-something like me really seems to an 18-year-old male relative.

On my last night in West Virginia, before dropping me at my hotel in Washington, the Cogs took me out to eat at Outback. The six of us (cousin Nick brought a friend) were driving there, and Nick's friend got a text from his girlfriend wondering where he was. The fam decided we thought he should have little fun with it. He said he was "with Audrey." When the poor girl took the bait and asked, "well, who is that?", he said it was a girl he had just met today and we had gone out for dinner at a steakhouse (by this time we were ordering). So, technically, all this was true, but of course it sounded a little less innocent than it actually was. I told the friend, John, that when the jig was up and he told her that I was just Nick's cousin, that he better not add something like "and plus, she's like, old," to my description. He agreed to this.

At this point though, Nick said, "How old are you, anyway?" I told him my age, which is 25. And he replied, "25!?! Why don't you have a kid?" LOL! I didn't have a very good answer to that...it was a little out of nowhere, so I sputtered out a, "Wha-Why don't I have a kid??? Cuz I'm only 25!!!" Which is not really an appropriate answer - being 25, I guess technically, I could have a 10 or 11-year-old (I'm really glad I don't, though!), and more realistically, I suppose I could easily have a 4 or 5 year old...But, I digress. So then I said, "I'm not even married. And anyway, you're 18 - why don't you have a kid?"

By way of apology, Nick said, "I'm sorry! I work at IHOP, the 25-year-olds there all have like three kids." Still, Nick - not cool! ;) I did get a kick out of it though...yep, seemed pretty hilarious...*right* after I finished sobbing in grief for my lost youth and making appointments for Botox injections twice daily for the rest of my life - which apparently isn't too much longer considering how freakin' old I am! ;)