WORLD: What is wrong with you, Hannah? Why is it you need a nap every afternoon? Why can't you stand for more than half an hour without getting dizzy?
HANNAH: Fucked if I know, World! Would that I did. But hey, the other day I swapped life- and medical-histories with my new favourite colleague, and when she had the same symptoms a few years ago, turned out she had thyroid cancer. So, there's that.
RANDOM DUDE I'VE NEVER KNOWN VERY WELL AND ALSO HAVE NOT SEEN FOR MONTHS, AS A CONVERSATIONAL OPENER WHEN I RETURNED FROM A CAT NAP: Lazy!
What a charmer, huh?
Scene 2: the subject of age-related bodily changes came up in the pub the other day. Grey hairs, chin bristles. At a table full of middle aged women, at 24 I had a forest of each to their sparsely covered grasslands. And yet every single one of them looked at my silvered tresses and spiky chin and said, "Just wait til you get to our age!" Despite hard physical evidence right in front of their eyes, despite my own express testimony - why the flip would I lie? "I'm going grey and have a hairy chin! That's cool, and hot, right?" - I am apparently not an authority on my own experience.
Similarly, a young woman without any outward signs of disability - other than, y'know, what she actually says - can't have any reason for taking a siesta, or taking up a bus seat, besides sheer laziness. This is how age speaks to youth, and there's no speaking back, because that would be disrespectful.
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