Get off my lawn VS Why are you on my lawn in the first place?

When did I get old?

And just stop right there, missy, because the correct response to that question should involve no thought whatsoever on your part but rather a vigorously delivered, "You're not even close to old!"

Okay, now that we've got that out of the way.

When did I get old, by which I mean when did I start getting annoyed by little things that I used to be able to shake off? I feel a little like I might be a good candidate to stand outside my house and yell "Get off my lawn" to the school kids walking home.

Generally speaking I think I'm pretty zen. Or I used to be. I could let things go. Or, more accurately, I really didn't notice the things that would fall into the category of "just let it go".

Repetitive noises? What noises?
People pulling their checkbooks (CHECKBOOKS?!) out to pay only after all their groceries have been bagged? It's cool. I'm not in a hurry.
You're going to deliver my newspaper to the very bottom of my driveway every morning, rain or shine? Ok, I guess. I don't quite understand why you used to throw the paper on my porch until one seemingly random day when you decided you weren't going to anymore, but I can adjust.

That used to be me. Now, I'm more like...

Oh dear god how can a dog bark that much and not get hoarse? Seriously, how does it even have any bark left? And come on, man, can you not hear your dog?

Wait, you're paying with a CHECK? Do stores even take checks anymore? And you're going to make everyone wait while you enter the amount into your check register and do that math to get your new balance? Two words for you: debit card.

Fold the paper. Rubber band it. Drive around. Throw papers on porch. PORCH. Is that not part of the job description anymore? Or now does it just read, "And then throw the paper anywhere on the customer's property. They'll find it if they really want to."

See what I mean? Can't you just picture me yelling, "Get off my lawn!"?

So is it just age? When you're over 50 does everything just morph from tolerable to unbearable?

That was my thinking for a while, but I've reconsidered. And I have the answer (for me, anyway--probably not for you). The answer is: create an explanation that does not annoy me.

I like to write, so this is pretty fun for me. So when these annoying things happen, after hurling expletives and raising my voice and asking rhetorical questions--

                   "oh my god dog shut the F up! you've been barking for half an hour straight--do you know how little effort it would take for me to wrap a vicodin in a piece of ham and huck it over the fence?" (all of this is in my head, by the way--I would never actually curse or yell at a dog and I probably would not wrap vicodin in ham and throw it over the fence)

 --then I write a back-story in my head that explains away the situation in a manner that allows me to be ok with the annoying part.  So, for example, in the case of the dog that belongs to the people behind us who like to leave it alone outside for hours on end when they go to church on Sundays, I might think to myself, "I bet that dog is barking out of instinct just to get some attention and is probably pretty tired of barking and would really love a vicodin." No, I'm kidding. I really have never done that. I promise.

Let me give a different example. So the little old lady who likes to write checks at the supermarket while telling the checker all about her week, all the while writing slowly and occasionally stopping writing altogether to wave her pen and make a point--yes, she makes the line go very slowly, there's no escaping that. But then I think that maybe, just maybe, she doesn't have anyone at home to talk to. Maybe she's all by herself most of the time, with the TV on for company. Her kids and grandkids don't live in town, and going to the store and seeing people and chatting is a high point in her day. And maybe she just can't remember a PIN number for her ATM card, so she writes checks. It's hard to be mad at that. I may be completely wrong and she's just a crazy woman who doesn't care how many people are standing behind her. But given the fact that I don't know the facts, I can make up my own set of facts and then it's not that hard to have a little empathy for her.

Since I know you are thinking to yourself that I did not satisfactorily explain how I can ignore the neighbor's dog (I admit I haven't figured that one out yet), let me explain how I have come to grips with the newspaper at the bottom of our driveway. The carrier used to throw it on our porch. That stopped without warning and with no explanation. Annoying, yes. Lazy? Possibly. But, I know it's a married couple who delivers our paper (they give their customers a little Christmas card every year). Delivering newspapers cannot possibly pay the cost of living for a couple, much less a family. Maybe, just maybe, they added more houses to their route to try to increase their income. To get through them all, maybe they don't stop at each house to throw the paper onto the porch. Maybe they have to continue driving and just throw onto the driveway to get all the way through by the end of the delivery window, at which point it's only 7am and they probably both have a second job to go to. This may or may not be true. But again, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt in the absence of facts. They are a couple delivering newspapers at 4:30am (possibly in a beat up old Chevy that's barely running). Any way you cut it, that is not an easy life.

Yes, I get more easily annoyed than I used to. But I think that's on me, not on the world. I'm sure I do things that annoy people. I can name things that I do that I am positive are annoying, because frankly I annoy myself when I do them. I try hard to not do them. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. So the next time I cut you off mid-sentence and don't let you finish your thought, be kind as you invent why it is that I do that. I don't have to be an arrogant jerk who only likes to hear her own voice (though that does sound like a fun story that could get better and better the more you let me interrupt you). It could be that I'm so damn excited about what you're saying that I just can't wait to tell you my thoughts (not quite as exciting as the previous explanation, but it makes me look good so it'll do).

I'm not 25 anymore. I cannot, as Taylor Swift would have me, "Shake it off. Shake it off. Sh Sh shake it off."

But I can, using my imagination, write it off.