Geriatric and friends *updated*

I got my first taste of what it feels like to be called "tannie" this week. For those of you who are non-South African, "tannie" (pronounced "tie" and "knee") means "aunty" and is usually a respectful term coined by Afrikaans-speaking young people for those who they see as muuuuuch older than them. Tis hence the season to be very depressed. Shocking! When did old age creep up on me??? OK, so I'd noticed the odd grey hair here and there. And a few smile lines. But shucks, these kids who are here now are like 13 years and older, and even some of the early twenty-year-olds are calling me "tannie"! My shattered nerves! Roll on the wheelchair. Oh and the false teeth. They'll match my false brown hair colour. Yikes!

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Incidentally... to add insult to ego-injury, my friend (some ten to twelve years or so younger than me) and I were walking together towards the dining hall one day of the kids camp, and a twenty-something-year-old walked up to us and said, "like, hey... are you two, like, um, mother and daughter or something?" Clearly, it's time to get my roots dyed. Those grey hairs are showing me up.