You Know You're Old When ...

You know you’re getting up there in when, you have an experience like this: On tearing through the mall one day, you impulsively duck into a discount department store, head for the loungewear and pull from the rack a delicious-looking sample of the cozy-clothes on display there.You don’t even try the thing on.Then, on seeking to return it a week later because in fact it is sized more for Dumbo the Elephant than for any human female, you learn to your amazement that the young person at Customer Service does not recognize it as any species of garment at all.“What IS this?” she asks, holding it up to start processing the refund.“Uh…” you say.She keeps on examining it, turning it over in her hands as you stand stunned into silence.“Wait, what do you mean ‘what is it?’ you finally say. “It’s a bathrobe of course!”“THIS is a bathrobe? “ she says with a look of complete befuddlement.“Yes, it’s a bathrobe!“ you say back with a similar look.  It’s as if you are from two countries sharing a common language in which the word ‘bathrobe’ means entirely different things. “It’s not, like, a costume of some kind?” she says. “A costume?’ you say. “Like for a king? One of the Three Kings maybe, like, you know, for a Christmas pageant?” “What? No! This a BATHROBE. This is what bathrobes look like!"Ah but that is where you are wrong. Because in fact bathrobes have not looked like this in some time.No, these kinds of bathrobes, done in polyester plush, zipping up the front and topped off with a yoke of smocking or ornamental braid, have not truly been seen since the Golden Girls drifted around their airy ranch house on rising from their beauty sleep.That is why the young woman thinks you a dinosaur, as you are. As you surely are....