I’m deep into my curmudgeon era and have begun to wonder if the next stage of aging is indifference, and if I will ever reach the indifference stage or if I will continue to hoard my list of things that were better in the last century, like a troll hoarding silver bars and brass buttons under a bridge.
My current haute-curmudgeonly gripe is that the traffic control officers and crossing guards of America no longer swing their arms the way they used to. Do you remember the broad gestures that, back in the olden days of the 1900s, crossing guards and cops were trained to employ? They would windmill one arm to bring cars forward and thrust it up in a dramatic, palm-forward motion and hold it there stoically to command a line of cars to stop. Do you remember the white gloves they wore, once upon a time, so you couldn’t miss seeing their hands? There was no ambiguity. Now, the traffic control officers of America in 2026 have clearly deemed white gloves and broad gestures to be the height of uncool. Nowadays, they will flicker one hand at their hip to convey the command “stop” and flap their bare fingers toward their palm once to convey “come,” and they perform these micro gestures of unclear meaning even in the gloaming of dusk in a rainstorm.
You know you are a 1900s native if you find yourself pinching your brows together over the top of your nose, compressing your lips, and attempting to find words to describe the ways in which modern traffic control has failed you.
As I’ve mentioned (more than a few times) before here in my column, I’m very glad to be a native of the 1900s because I grew fully to adulthood living entirely in the world of the senses and therefore know how much more piquant, intense, and alive it all was, when compared with our current in-between, our existence between the physical sensorium and the half-world of virtual life (a.k.a. screentime). But while I’m glad to be a predigital native, I’ve now reached an age at which my out-of-datedness is obvious and sometimes an impediment. I’m Generation X and, as such, have — speaking metaphorically — become that slowpoke taking too long in the supermarket aisle inspecting the grapefruits one by one, bothering the customer with the cart behind me. I am living in a different world from the one I was born in. I am akin to that dauntless but internally a bit confused tourist from another country who doesn’t know how to place an order in a foreign restaurant.
Did you get the memo that people in the 21st century don’t really use the word “supermarket” any longer? I was surprised to learn this factoid last week when reading questions about English-language usage on Reddit. (Don’t ask.) I still say “supermarket.” I still pronounce the word “grocery” as grow-sir-ree, not “grow-sher-ee.” I still maintain the distinction between the vowel sounds in “Mary,” “merry,” and “marry.”
In addition to this mentally maintained tally of my own linguistic anachronism, there is a fair amount of contemporary lingo that I simply refuse to adopt. Sitting here on my curmudgeon throne, surveying this new world I’ve accidentally wandered forward into (because apparently the traffic cop failed to gesture clearly and point me towards the detour), my list of annoying words and phrases I won’t use grows longer by the week. Among the phrases you will never hear me using is “forest bathing.” That one really annoys the hell out of me. You’re just walking in the woods, good people. Do we have to make such a big deal out of it? Similarly, you’re not “foraging for clams,” as I saw a food columnist in The New York Times write a few weeks ago. You’re just clamming. And: Stop saying “foraging,” full stop. (And stop saying “full stop.”)
One funny thing about being a real hoarder of time — getting older — is that if you wait long enough, abide long enough, the commonplace knowledge of your youth starts to sound like arcana. It’s come to my attention that Gen Z doesn’t know what a Karmann Ghia or an MG Midget is. I mean, there’s zero reason for them to know what a Karmann Ghia or MG Midget is. But the fact that I do, just because I’m old, makes me sound like I’m some kind of clever car nut, when in fact knowing the names of these vintage convertible makes is only the residue of having grown up in the 1970s, when the singles of Manhattan drove out to Amagansett in Karmann Ghias and MG Midgets to swing from the disco ball among the ferns at Martell’s.
Other random examples of things 1900s natives know that natives of the new millennium don’t know include: the existence of a movie star named Warren Beatty and the fact that he was an international grand-champion lothario; what a “cream rinse” is, and a “valise,” and “penny loafers.” I know the melody of “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation,” while I suspect some under-25s might not even know what a “sport coat” is. Is this wisdom? The wisdom acquired with age? Clearly not. It’s just barnacles of fact that stick to your hide and accumulate, forming a heavy crust, acquiring volume and mass . . . and slowing down your progress (metaphorically speaking) as you try to navigate the fruit and vegetable aisle in the supermarket. We’re like sea turtles with clumps of heavy barnacles on our shells, trying to mind our own business and swim along.
My children can do things I cannot, it’s true, but — says the curmudgeon, who at least is a cheerful curmudgeon who sees the humor in it rather than a mean curmudgeon — most of those things they can do better have to do with turning the flashlight on on a cellphone, or rearranging app icons on a cellphone, or programming the blah-blah-blah on a blah-blah-blah device. I know how to read a map! A paper map! I can look at a map and point to north! And I can give change, recognizing immediately that handing a cashier $21 for a $16 purchase should produce a 5 dollar bill in return! And I’m capable of giving clear instructions about how to move, physically, in the physical world! I mean, unlike kids these days who work weekends at the cinema, you won’t find me using the phrase “straight to the left” when I mean “walk towards the doors of Cinema One, turn left, and the bathroom will be at the end of the hall.” I know what “half past three” means!
Below the aforementioned “supermarket,” marking it all down in pencil, I’ve started compiling a list of other unfashionable words that younger people have stopped using but that I will use still. I mean, a list above and beyond the obvious words — like “pantyhose,” or “pocketbook,” or “purse.” I’m a hoarder of words that were common once, excellent in their utility and specificity, but have fallen out of favor. Here’s a good one: “upchuck.” Why does no one say “upchuck” anymore?