Apparently I'm Showing My Age

Austen and I went to watch Al's hockey game at the University of Pennsylvania's Class of 1923 Ice Rink tonight. Toward the end of the game, Austen started melting down, so I put him in the stroller and walked him around outside for a bit. I'd just come back in and was standing by the glass near the entrance when I noticed a woman in the stands above me... holding a large bar of one of my favorite kinds of chocolate. "You came prepared, I see," said I. She smiled and said, "is one of your kids playing?"

I was so startled I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly at first. Then I did the math in my head, and I decided that though it was theoretically possible that I could be the mother of one of the guys on the ice—most of whom were students at Drexel or Penn—it wasn't very likely (and certainly not if you knew me). "Um, no," I replied. "My husband is."

"Oh," replied the woman, who seemed neither embarrassed nor that much younger than I. In fact, I would have said that we were "about the same age," though now that I think of it, she was probably in her early twenties. I guess, technically, I could have been *her* mom. Wow.

Posted by Lori in me, me, me at 10:52 PM on November 13, 2005