Recently I realized just how mature (we will not say “old”)
my way of thinking is.
While we were in Philadelphia a couple of weekends ago the
Love Couple brought us to a brewery. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, one
where I expected most people to be outside walking and enjoying the warmth. But
nooo. Somehow they all had the same idea – stopping by the brewery with all
their friends, taking up a lot of space and talking. Loudly.
The din of voices and glass echoed through the high
warehouse type rafters. We waded through the crowd and managed to find five
seats together, but attempting to hear each other over the cacophony of
storytelling, clinking drinks and laughter was useless. Sound reverberated off
the walls to the point that I could not hear my own shrill voice as I struggled
to talk to my family.
Now, I will admit I’ve been fighting Spouse’s idea of
designating a local tap room as our almost-every-weekend stop. But at that
moment I longed for the dark cellar and not-quite-comfortable seats, and even
the shuffleboard game where I have found myself continually trounced by
You-Know-Who (and he’s an obnoxious winner, which we will cover another time).
I forget sometimes that First Born and The Groom live in a
huge city where it is rare to find an actual small crowd. When Mainers (or
those of us from Away who claim to be Mainers) say “a few people” we are
serious – there will be a few, as in three or maybe four people. In a place
like Philly where “just around the corner” means a three-mile hike, a few
people typically starts at 50. So there we were that Saturday afternoon,
surrounded by a few people by city standards. I started taking to reading lips
and didn’t dare separate from the rest of our crew.
I have never been one for very loud places, even though I
was the lead singer of a band in another life (before my main talent became
cutting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into sailboats). My rowdy days took
place more than three decades ago, when I knew the words to songs that hadn’t
been in a Disney movie. No part of me is up to dealing with deafening
entertainment at this stage in life. In other words, my midlife crisis will have nothing to do
with grabbing the microphone and storming the stage again. But oh, I could tell
you some stories.
Even though our kids are grown and we are allowed to have a
life of our own once again, I believe Spouse would agree with me. We’re good
with it being a quiet one. We can still be a fun couple (yes we can, stop
laughing) but we’d prefer not to lose our hearing within a half hour of
amplified imbibing and millennial musings.
That’s the other thing. I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m the
oldest one in the place. You know it’s a bad sign when you look around a
crowded brewery and you’re wondering why none of these kids is getting up and
giving you their seat. That was what I found most confusing about our stop that
day. What were all these young people doing at a brewpub in the middle of the
day? Don’t they start their pubbing at 10 p.m., after I’ve fallen asleep
watching Modern Family reruns?
A few nights ago I had crawled into bed and was just getting
comfy, when voices and laughter from our next-door neighbors’ backyard drifted
into our bedroom window. My first thought was: Are they really up this late?
Don’t they know they shouldn’t be making noise past…
My eye came into focus with the numbers of the clock in
disbelief.
It wasn’t even 9:30.
So maybe it’s me and not the noise. Maybe in my next life I
will be a big clanging bell or a megaphone. I just can’t think about that right
now.
It’s after 9:30.
Hear hear!! We try to avoid those types of noisy places but don't always succeed, especially when the younger generation picks the place. As I get older I go to bed earlier, but we have a rule - cannot go to bed before dark. The only good thing about winter is that we can go to bed really early!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Meryl! It's not totally unheard of for me to slip into PJs by 5 p.m. during those early dark winter evenings!
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