Mrs. Smoot Hits a Milestone!

Go ahead and mark Monday on your calendar.  If you have a modern calendar, you'll probably find that "Monday" is already on there.  But this coming Monday is Mrs. Smoot's 40th birthday!

She doesn't seem to be particularly thrilled with this milestone.  And I can't really blame her; I remember being a little depressed about the whole thing when I hit that mark two years ago.  Age 40 is definitely another step on the path to elderlyhood.

We were talking to a woman at a restaurant the other night, and in the course of the conversation we learned that she was 43.  This was a woman I had met at an event a few weeks back, and I would have assumed she was waaaaaaay older than I am, not just by a year.  She used a CANE for heaven's sake.  I dunno.

Mrs. Smoot has already been suffering from a variety of pre-40 Imaginary Illnesses.  I did the same thing when I was turning 40.  When I was getting close to hitting the big 4-0, I spent a lot more time being extra aware of my health, as though we start falling apart limb for limb at the stroke of midnight on a 40th birthday.

I remember worrying about every little "symptom."  Was this spot here before?  Say, I don't remember having this much nose hair.  And let's not even speak of the issue of gray hairs.

It definitely doesn't help that we are avid viewers of the TV show House, either.   From watching that show, we know that it's definitely possible to be feeling perfectly normal one moment, and then have blood shooting out of our eyeballs the next.  Probably Sarcoidosis.

So I would expect that Mrs. Smoot will have some number of imaginary health issues for a couple months, until she settles in with the whole 40 thing.

Mrs. Smoot is also not too fond of having people make a big deal out of her birthday, so whatever you do, try your best to keep it our little secret (I'll give you her cell phone number if you ask...).