My birthday is this week – feel free to send cards, flowers, small but exquisite gifts  –  so it seems like a good time to bring this up... I don’t know how old I am.  I mean, I know how old I am. I know what year I was born and I know what year it is now.  I can do the math, thank you very much.  I just don’t know HOW old I am.

Of course, the AARP has been swamping my mailbox since I made the half-century mark (don’t snicker – it’ll happen to you, too) but after that, things got a little murky.  It started when an otherwise pleasant person at the hardware store asked, “Senior discount?”

“NO,” I snarled at her, thinking, “Hey lady, I could hurt you.”  But when I visited a close-by cultural institution a few days later, I discovered I qualify for a discounted admission.  Two bucks off.   That’s hard to argue with.  No matter how old you are or aren’t, two bucks is...  well, two bucks.

Based on that discovery, when my membership for the film society came due, I re-upped as a senior.  Later, reading the brochure, I discovered I’d cheated this struggling arts organization out of $15.  According to their specs, I was just an ordinary adult.  (Well, of course I sent a check for the difference.  What kind of person do you think I am?)

This line is a real moving target.  You’re a senior at 55 here, 62 or 67 there, 60 elsewhere, 50 now and then, 65 most often but as old as 70 or even 72 in some circumstances.

I’m a not a senior at the art museum, but I am at the natural history museum.  (It doesn’t take that long to walk over there...)  I can take drawing classes at one college for just the studio fee but at another, I have to pay full tuition.

On Wednesdays, I can ask for 10 percent off my total purchase at the big box home store, but I get 10 percent off at the drug store every day, at least on some things.  I think I’m a Sierra Club senior although maybe not.  I’m not sure about the Audubon Society, either.  I’ll have to check.

Lest you think all this vacillating seniorhood means I’m due to sit in my rocker and crochet tea cozies, I want to tell you...  I recently kayaked the coast of Baja California.  I also backpacked the Grand Canyon.  Yes, the Grand Canyon, that big one in Arizona.  I hiked seven miles down the south rim and 14 miles up the north rim on my own two little-old-lady legs, and carried all my own gear.  It wasn’t easy, and I couldn’t have done it without the help and encouragement of our fearless trip leader, but I did it.  Yes, I did.

I made the trip with nine other folks who may or may not be seniors, depending on what museum they’re trying to get into.  I was the slowest of the slow, the trail caboose throughout.  At the front of the pack, leading the parade all the way down and all the way up, was Charlie.  At 73, he was the oldest in our ranks.  Not a single one of us younger folks could keep up with him.  And after the hike, while most of the group was nursing sore calf muscles in a Flagstaff hot tub, Charlie was off to Utah for a two-week bike tour.

So, for my birthday, I’d like lots of Malley’s dark chocolate (with nuts), some good books, a copy of Tommy Smothers’ Yo-Yo Man, and a purple Hula Hoop, but no lavender sachets or old lady shawls, please.  I’ve figured out what, or at least who, I want to be when I grow up and rocking chairs are not involved.

Ignore the gender switch here; it’s the thought that counts.  As I proceed through ever-graying, off-and-on-again, sometimes-sometimes not seniorhood into full-fledged no-doubt-about-it golden age, I have decided...  I‘m gonna be Charlie.