Catching up with (old) AGE?

My birthday is coming up soon, and with its impending arrival, all those philosphical thoughts firmly forced to the back of my mind are beginning insist that I pay them mind. Thoughts like where have the years gone by? I cannot believe I am this old and what have I achieved? And so on and so forth.

I am horrified by the realisation that if these were the bad old days, I would be a grandmother (that is if I had a daughter at 14, and she did the same of course). I have become a "nyakinywa", a matriach to the rest of the world, and consequently, I am becoming more like the boys on "Grumpy Old Men" as can be seen on BBC Two. I was shaken to find my head nodding in agreement with the likes of (Oh Dear God help me!!) Bob Geldof and his posse of middle-aged men as they complained about mobile phones, thongs, fast foods and the way the world is being ran.

So like the Nyakinywa I have become, I listing warning signs for all you bright young things to bear in mind when your times comes so that you can age gracefully (or not). It is not just the usual eyes going or aching back and knees, take that for granted, but things like fashions you wore a few decades ago that are now "dead trendy" say like miniskirts, bell-bottomed trousers and platform shoes (which contributed to the knee and back problem no doubt)

The list runs like this:
You know you are old if:

1. Instead of planning how you will "pull" that right tasty bloke, you start matching him up with your niece or next door neighbour's daughter (an "African niece" of course).
2. You see a young girl wearing a very short skirt and you are having to force yourself not to go and pull it down.
3. You do not have a date on Friday or Saturday. To be truthful you'd perfer not to go out on the weekends since you would rather rest up.
4. You want to leave the party early - because you want (yes you guessed it)to rest up.
5.Those children you carried on your back and whose diapers you changed have become your colleagues and confidantes
6. You start forecasting the weather through the various pains and aches in your knees
7. You are stuck on the last millenum's dance steps (who remembers the bump, the funky chicken or the hustle)?
8. The music you danced to back in the day (and is still fresh in your mind) is what is nowadays referred to as "Golden Oldies" or "Wazee Wakumbuka"
9. Like Tom Selleck in "Friends" who thought he was hanging with the guys but the guys thought he was the "most fun dad"!!
10. You start getting the names of your nieces and nephews mixed up and end up shouting all the names in the hopes that the one you want will answer you
11. The eyes are going, the ears and the knees
12. Horrors of horrors you have become your mother (or father)