This weekend I pitched in at a recruitment event. I spent a few hours at an information booth greeting prospective university students and their parents. I do this every year and I quite enjoy it.
This year a funny thing happened:
A woman and her 3 kids came up to the booth. I greeted them and the woman and I looked at each other for a moment. It was weird ― I thought I knew her from somewhere. But I couldn’t place her.
After a few seconds she said, “I think I know you from somewhere.” And then it clicked, and I said, “yeah, I think we went to high school together.”
High school! Someone I went to high school with has kids old enough to go to university. I don’t know why this threw me for such a loop but it did. I technically am old enough to have teens, I suppose. Most of my friends don’t have kids and the ones who do have much younger children. So nearly-adult children of my peers are something I am just not used to.
After she left, my friend and colleague K. (who was at the booth with me) assured me that I did not look old enough to have teenagers. I told her it was due to the special moisturizers I use daily. But really, I was thinking that woman could’ve been me. We are the same age, I just chose a different path.
My friend K. also said during our time at the info booth that my “reign of terror for the 09-10 admission cycle” had begun after I scared a youngster with my over-zealous greeting.
I do this every year. You see, it seems that I scare (or else annoy) the teens with my boisterous nature. The young ones scare easily it seems…or else they’re too cool to deal with a zany adult asking them about future study plans.