In with the Old Guy

I'm a big believer that age, much like 690,131.42, is just a number. But now that I'm officially out of my 20s, I've started to notice certain signs of getting older.

Not my ear... yet.

It began a few months ago where most of my life-changing moments occur -- in the barber's chair. (I still maintain I was just waiting to be discovered to join a boy band in the early aughts when I was rocking the frosted tips.) Maria, who has been cutting my hair for years, was finishing up with the razor when she gently ran it over my outer ear, almost apologetically.

"Better on the outside of the ear than on the inside," I said with a laugh.

"Just wait a few years," the hair follicles in my ear replied with a laugh.

It was my first Old Guy Moment. And while I don't think I'll be needing adult diapers anytime soon, recently I've been paying closer attention to Old Guys to see what's in store for me.

One of the first things I do when I come across an Old Guy is look down, where I inevitably notice white tennis shoes. And not just any sneakers -- these always look beat up, like they've been on a Saturday errand run from hell. Do Old Guys buy the shoes already used? And where, exactly, do they get them? I swear I've never seen white tennis shoes at a shoe store. Maybe they are a dog whistle to an Old Guy. I guess I'll find out if and when I hear the siren's call.

The white tennis shoes on an Old Guy are often accompanied by tucked-in shirts, no matter the outfit. I get tucking the dress shirt into slacks, or a polo shirt into khakis. But do we need to tuck the old T-shirt into the bathing suit? For some men, maybe the tuck/untuck decision comes down to how to best downplay the size of the gut. The simplest solution might be some exercise which, on the plus side, means more time wearing the white tennis shoes.

Speaking of the gym, that's about the only place where you see an Old Guy with messy hair. Let's stipulate that many Old Guys don't have much hair to mess up. That will not be an issue for me, however, since I come from a line of men with full heads of hair. In fact, one of my great ancestors, Josephus Jacobus, had a thriving business in Babylonia selling hairshirts made straight from his scalp.

When it comes to modern-day Old Guys with hair, I've noticed very few use hair products and yet nary a follicle is out of place. When they walk in a breeze, the hair moves with the synchronicity of a rowing team and then immediately falls back in line when the breeze stops.

Right now, the front of my head is trained well but the sides and rear flank remain a Wild West without some hair paste, so I have some work to do (and some years to age). On the other hand, the Old Guy with perfect hair probably has to go to the bathroom every two hours while I'm in the prime years of bladder control, so maybe it all evens out.

The thing about all of these Old Guy traits is, I'm not exactly opposed to them. Maybe they are the Boy Scout badges of advanced manhood. Maybe, when you reach the age when you tuck a T-shirt into your jeans, you don't care that you tucked your T-shirt into jeans. We should all be as comfortable in our skins as an Old Guy.

Which is why I'm kind of looking forward to the journey, as long and filled with bathroom breaks as it might be. That just leaves one question: How long after turning 30 do I receive the Old Guy fannypack?