The 10 Major Advantages and Disadvantages to Being an Aging Baby Boomer

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Being a Baby Boomer is not easy

Population scientists describe the Baby Boom generation as anybody born between the years 1946 and 1964. Which means the youngest of the Baby Boomers turned 50 last year, and the oldest will turn 70 next year. Which is just so wrong. We Boomers are the architects of the youth culture. We invented young people for crum’s sakes. We’re the Pepsi Generation … that had a minor fling with Coke.

But fear not. As we evidenced throughout the entirety of our flower-powered history, this autumn of our lives will be charged into with unwavering optimism, a firm commitment to affect positive change and pockets full of drugs.

The first item of business that needs to be put in order is the nomenclature. Is it really necessary to refer to us as elderly seniors winding down our golden years? We’re vintage. Classic. Enduring. Seasoned. Steadfast. Resilient. Ripe. And accumulating ripagosity every day.

But all you kids out there shouldn’t think that growing old is all gloom and doom. No. No. No. There’s an equal amount of marvelous traveling hand in hand with the gruesome. Compare for yourself, the 10 major advantages and disadvantages, plus one, of being an aging baby boomer.

The 10 Major Disadvantages to Being an Aging Baby Boomer

  1. Exorbitant cost of replacement parts.
  2. Sex and drugs and rock and roll and now naps.
  3. When acid flashbacks meet dementia. On Prozac.
  4. Really difficult to work up any nostalgia for rotary phones.
  5. Turns out that old adage was right: the good DO die young. Which explains why we’re still here.
  6. Your children are no longer reliable sources when it comes to tech support and all the grandchildren have lost the ability to pick up a phone.
  7. Grandma’s field of butterflies tattoo is now a flock of pterodactyls.
  8. Looking at Harold & Maude from Ruth Gordon’s point of view — not Bud Cort’s.
  9. Rumors abound that despite the name, sexagenarians, alas, don’t really engage in a lot of sex.
  10. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome, getting old means doing the same things you always did, with constantly varying results.
  11. No jet packs.

The 10 Major Advantages to Being an Aging Baby Boomer

  1. Fewer peers means less peer pressure and it diminishes every day.
  2. The phrase: “lifetime supply” becomes a much more imaginable concept.
  3. Always one ear hair so long and thick you can cut cheese with it.
  4. In hostage situations, chances are you’ll be among the first released.
  5. No longer have to worry about being the fresh young thing in prison. Sweet.
  6. Knees are better at predicting the weather than that guy on TV.
  7. Just saying “irritable bowel syndrome” creeps young people out so much they go away.
  8. Can always tell people the battery in your hearing aid is shorting out, even when you’re not wearing a hearing aid.
  9. Totally lack the energy and often forget to keep lifelong grudges active.
  10. The Rolling Stones can be heard in elevators.
  11. Going to the bathroom 3 times a night turns out to be a highly effective means of home security.
Will Durst
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