Pint Sized

“Are you being served?”  She asked.  Of course I laughed.  I know irony when I hear it.  Ah, the joyful exuberance of post-modernism. 

‘Ha, ha!’  I giggled, ‘Yes, very funny.  Very good.’

She just looked at me.

I looked back.  The barmaid was just a girl, I suspected no older than six or seven.  I realised that while not impossible, this was hugely unlikely and certainly illegal.  However it was the only way I could explain how she looked twenty-years younger than me.  It was either that or I’m not 26 afterall.

It’s said that age becomes an issue when you start to comment that policemen and doctors are younger than you.  I’ve noticed things like that since 1862.  There are giant tortoises that look suspiciously youthful next to me these days.  Thank God, I’m not a horse:  I’d have been sticking broken crockery years ago.

Nothing dates me more convincingly that when, in the absence of a better description, I have to refer to today’s heroine as ‘the young woman behind the bar.’  She didn’t know what I was talking about.  This, as you may know, is not unusually.  She didn’t follow my immediate connection to a 1970s comedy series set in the Grace Brothers’ department store.  I suspect she didn’t actually know the 1970s existed at all.

She stood looking blankly at me.  Actually, not quite blankly, she looked at me as though I smelt of wee and mothballs. 

‘I’m sorry.’  I offered as she handed me a pint of warm beer, ‘I though you were being funny.’
“Do I look like I’m being funny?”

I had to admit, there was no argument there.

Comments

[Jon]

Don't worry about your age old boy, after all given that the average UK male life expectancy is 76 your not classed as mddle aged until your 38, you must be miles off that!

Also I am pushing 30 and cant actually REMEMBER any of the 70's!!!!

Always pleased to make you feel better.....

[Carlton]

I am greatly reassured and comforted, Jon. You are paragon of calm.

Obviously I will keep your secret about your true age. I know that you won't remember the 1870s but I suspect your memories after that are pretty clear.

c.