How I Complained About Turning 40 Without Really Trying

A love story

Those that know me well understand that I have, arguably, always been a winkle-bit crotchety. Part of my charm, as they say. Well, as I say, at least. On Friday, however, I got my official whiner license. I turned 40.

I don’t really have any issue with turning 40, actually. Funny thing, it was only a couple months ago that my mom informed me that I wasn’t 38. I had to do the math on my phone since I honestly had no idea and couldn’t wrap my brain around loosing a year of my life over a glass of wine.

I’ll spare you what has become known as “my list” but waiting on my rut-like Grande Americano that morning, I thought it would be fun to do a little real-time, in the trenches, documenting what turning 40 felt like for me – you know, for historical purposes.

1. Woke up this morning. Turned 40. Back hurts.
2. Making breakfast for my little girls at 6:15am with a stack of presents on the counter and all I could think about was the business development deck I had to finish by 9am
3. Opening presents at 6:25am with my little girls and all I could think about were my little girls
4. Still dealing with the drama of leaving the house 13 minutes late, somebody else’s little girl working the register at Starbucks called me “sir”
5. I realized that I should now be allowed – if not expected – to make a list of everything that makes me crotchety at 40; and that makes me a little happy
6. I really like the flow of #1 but I can’t stop looking back to the trailing “.”
7. People who end bulleted list items with periods should be spanked and given a haircut
8. Dammit! Can’t figure out Facebook privacy settings – for me, this’ll become the blinky-VCR-clock analogy from my parent’s generation
9. Reithmeyers Auto-Repair, who just took $3,620.05 for my wife’s minivan transmission, just popped up as a potential friend on Facebook – for clarity, Reithmeyers Auto-Repair is NOT the hot, lead cheerleader from high school, nor the rock-star industry lead I should know, nor the investor counting the piles of money I should have – it’s the dude who doesn’t know “auto repair” isn’t hyphenated and fixes my wife’s minivan
10. Again, I am reminded that my wife drives a minivan
11. While I get up early to starch and press my shirts, I am now realizing it only makes “more crispy” wrinkles when I fold my arms in disgust during meetings
12. At turning 30, those guys seemed idealistic; now that I am 40, they’re officially young and clueless
13. 11:15am – hungry
14. Perhaps Texas Chili Parlor for lunch was a bad idea
15. Discussion of Bike To Work Day today and took me at least 3 minutes to realize there were, in fact, no Vikings in downtown Austin today (that we know of), that made me a little embarrassed and a little sad
16. People who call me at 2pm on my birthday – yeah, that’s right, I’m talking to you – expecting me to be making cocktails in coconuts with umbrellas and sparkers instead of being at work STILL trying to finish that business development deck that had the freaking’ format changed on me – again – wait, what was I talking about?
17. Drinks with the Mrs. and friends – no complains noted (except that I got rained on because I HAD to retrieve my wife’s car because we HAD to leave during the 5 minutes it rained this month)
18. Holy crap! Seated at El Arbol at a really good table without asking twice to be reseated – happy birthday to me!
19. Midnight: oh yeah, Habanero Chili for lunch was, ironically, not a hot idea
20. Randomly wake at 3am on a Saturday morning; I’ve completed the transformation

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