by Kevin S. Engle
You know what I am?
Well, I’m a lot of things. And no doubt I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s another story.
One thing I know for sure, after looking it up, is this.
I’m a sexagenarian.
Before you get any wrong ideas about me, keep reading.
I saw an actress in a movie recently and remembered seeing her in a TV show from the late 80s and early 90s. I was curious how long the show had been on. The website referred to the main characters as tricenarians.
What the heck is a tricenarian?
That sounds like some kind of dinosaur.
Actually, it’s a person who’s between 30 and 39 years old.
Maybe that’s why the name of the show was thirtysomething.
Duh.
I’d never heard the word tricenarian before.
What am I?
A person in his 60s.
I’m a sexagenarian.
Well I’ll be.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital.
The word IMAGING was above the big double doors that open wide when one of the technicians appears and calls out the last name of the next patient.
I had to laugh when it dawned on me.
The word IMAGING was really just code for something else.
All you needed to crack the code was an appropriately placed apostrophe.
I’M AGING
The older you get, like sexagenarians, the more time you spend in places like these.
I often say I don’t think of myself as being sixtysomething. In my head, but maybe not my body, I still feel more like one of those tricenarians than a sexagenarian.
That dinosaur I mentioned?
That was a triceratops.
Younger folks often refer to older people as dinosaurs.
Someone who’s old-fashioned and out of touch with today’s world. Maybe even irrelevant.
That sounds a bit like me too.
I’m not a tricenarian anymore, but I am a dinosaur.
Things didn’t turn out too well for them.
The author doesn’t want to become extinct.
The Best of Engle’s Angle is available online or pick up a signed copy at a local bookstore.
