DAILY DIRT: Those subtle signs of aging are impossible to avoid

Daily Dirt for Tuesday, June 17, 2025

There is one (actually, maybe two) positives associated with the aging thing … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,317 of The Daily Dirt.

1. The gray hair is an obvious sign. Or lack of hair.

So is a slower pace of life, not to mention the inability to (easily) get up off the floor or out of a cushy chair.

It’s called getting older, and it’s unavoidable.

There are other subtle, yet obvious signs of aging, outside of just the calendar. If you’re a fellow boomer, see if any of the following sound familiar:

• When you’re asked your age, you have to pause because you can’t remember … and sometimes you even have to do math.
• You don’t like driving at night anymore because at some point they started making headlights brighter than the sun.
• You have realized “Grumpy Old Men” and “Falling Down” are no longer just movie titles. They’re training videos.
• You minimize your intake of liquids in the evening to minimize the amount of times you have to get up in the night and use the bathroom.
• Remember how exciting it was when you had plans to go out? That same level of excitement now occurs when any of those kinds of plans are canceled and you can stay home.
• You think it’s a great thing we can now get news, sports and weather anytime of the day, because it’s a rare evening when you can make it past 10 o’clock.
• You no longer look at medicine’s side effects, because now everything “causes drowsiness”.

But despite all of the negative effects of aging, there is one bright spot: You’re now at the age when no one asks you to help them move.

2. Did you know (Part 398)

• That 30 percent of humans can raise one eyebrow.
• That 22 percent of humans can wiggle one ear.
• That Iceland has no mosquitoes. Not even one.
• That the reason a rooster went to KFC was because he wanted to see a chicken strip.
• That it is illegal to eat peanuts while walking backward in Ridley Park, Pa. 

3. It’s now the time of year that when I commit to an outdoor event there is an unwritten humidity clause that I can invoke at any time (Unless it is at The Broadway Bullring).

Technically, this could be added as a second positive aspect of aging in Thought No. 1. 

Steve Thought O’ The Day — If you’re like me, you’re probably kind of tired of seeing so many people constantly write LOL at the end of their texts, emails, chats, etc., so I suggest using SALTS. That stands for Smiled A Little Then Stopped. In most cases, that would be much more accurate.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. I’m surprised he doesn’t still have a flip phone.