On the eve of 57, no less.

* * * *
I’ve strolled past enough of life’s temporal landmarks—birthdays that end in zero or five, or the first time someone called me “sir,” or when I turned 28 and AARP “free gift” mailers started to arrive—that I did not think one could jump out of an alley and surprise me, but it happened. And, yes, “surprised” is a euphemism for “enraged.”

Okay, “enraged” is an exaggeration. I did NOT hit the other person, nor did I try to.

Please allow me to set the scene for you: I am 56. (This is all anyone needs to know, right?)

A few months ago I was at one of my 12-step meetings and people started to chat around the coffeemaker in the half-hour before we started. After we moved out of the kitchen, a person younger than me sat beside me in the meeting room.

(Sound of a needle skidding and scratching across an LP.) Mind you, my first thought when I encounter someone of my acquaintance is not a version of, “This is a person younger than me,” or “So-and-so is older than I am.” My first thought is sometimes, “I don’t remember his name and I hope he doesn’t say my name,” which then when he says my name is followed by me recalling his name and saying it out loud too frequently. (Is twenty times in 90 seconds too many times? Asking for a friend.) Or more often than not I remember our last conversation and I ask for an update, like a human does. I am a somewhat normal human person.

We started to chat about books, and he asked what I am currently reading. Because I am in the middle of about ten different titles about fascism at the moment but it does not feel comfortable to blurt this fact out in mixed company, I conjured up in a hurry the most generic response I could muster: “I read mostly philosophy, you know, recovery books, and essays …” and my voice drifted off in such an obvious “I tried to ad-lib this but even though I am an improv performer with decades of experience I know that even you can tell I failed to ad-lib a believable answer” manner that I may as well have said “dot dot dot” out loud.

“Which essayists?” he asked, because he thought that I am a somewhat normal human person. My brain reacted as if I was back in grad school and one of my professors awakened me at 3:00 a.m. to give me a pop quiz. “Montaigne,” I blurted, mostly because I wanted a 1500-page book to fall from the sky and hit me in the head. My brain decided to further craft a lie that masqueraded as good advice, and I added, “You should read Montaigne.” I thought to myself, “I should START to read Montaigne.”

A third party started to talk about how he reads things on a tablet. I contributed the banal thought, “I still like physical books and knowing where I am in the book as I turn the pages.”

My first interlocutor, my fellow non-Montaigne reader, then asked, “Do people your age still like to read a lot?”

Now, dear reader or readers, I confess that I actually do not know what the subject of his question was. He could have asked, “Do people your age still like marshmallows?” or “Do people your age still dream?” or “Do people your age still need as much food, water, and light as an indoor spider plant?” Anything that followed the “Do people your age still” phrase was not going to be heard over the deafening sound of the “Do people your age still” phrase. He may have asked about reading habits as one grows older or he may not have. I truly don’t know.

I spluttered (which is something I guess an elderly person like I am does) a defensive response: “You should see my Goodreads. I read about thirty, thirty-five books a year.” This came out of me like one word. I know that my brain wanted to make me sound young and cool, so it namedropped an app. As I said, he may in fact have asked about marshmallow consumption by those of us of great age, in which case my real, out-loud answer must have been quite unlike that of a somewhat normal human person. All this was brought to an end by the start of our group meeting.

The next day, I shared the above with a friend of mine. She may be younger than my interlocutor, but I don’t know. She is younger than I am, but after the conversation I’d experienced the previous day, I felt like everyone’s younger than I am. She said that him saying, “Do people your age,” is a weird way to start any question to me, and added, “That guy probably just doesn’t know how to talk to people.” Her response may be the best part of the experience.

My edition of Montaigne still sits unread on my bookshelf. People my age still procrastinate. On November 18, I will be 57.

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Mark Aldrich is a blogger for Yokel Enterprises, an award-winning humor columnist, and a writer/performer with the Magnificent Glass Pelican radio comedy improv group, which just completed its thirty-fifth season:

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