Do I Have a Sign On My Back???

Last week I was reading one of my all time fav blogs... Suburb Sanity. Debbie is hysterical and I usually start the day off reading her posts. And you can usually tell if I have by the tea stains on my shirt from the said liquid being shot out my nose after reading her latest post. Yes, Debbie and I could be fast friends.
Debbie has a thing about shopping with seniors. Her post Forget What I Said About Getting Older is just another example as to why. And of course the post caused me to snort my tea instead of drink it...because we are within a couple of years of each other. This could have happened to me. Yet, during this post I kept laughing and thinking how she had nothin' on me.
Oh, the stories I could tell....

Which resulted in a new blog post. Today you get to hear one of those strange facts in the life of being Autumn. Not flattering or cool....but sort of funny. Sort of not.

Being a redhead brings a certain amount of attention. Add being small, way too white for the living and shy to the mix and you generate all kinds of adult attention. Why is that? Why do adults insist on talking to or engaging children that OBVIOUSLY want to be left alone?

So all my life I have attracted the grannies when I was younger....and the gramps when I hit about the teen years.

I've had gramps follow me around Wally World and stop me to tell me not ever cut my hair.
I've had a million and one gramps stop me to tell me how their mother's hair was that color... and now they have 4 grandchildren with red hair also.
I've had many an old man tell me if they were just 10 years younger.... (they'd still go to jail! Hah!)
In the military commissary, I cannot make it through the store without being stopped by a veteran on one pretense or another. And I'm a sucker for a veteran. And they can talk. For a long, long time. You'd be surprised the information stored in my brain from those talks. And hey, they always like to tell me where I can get even BETTER deals than at the commissary. That has come in handy a time or two. I LOVE veterans.
Do you know, as a teen and young adult how uncool it is to be the one in the group always getting hit on by seniors?? They would even try to give me money. (Like a dollar is really impressive to a teen.) Go buy yourself some candy little girl.
Eeewwww.

You can't imagine the hazing I've taken over this.

In my mid to late twenties we lived in Florida. And during this time I was going to school to be a certified chiropractic assistant. It was a blast. One other friend and I loaded up on certain weekends of the month and spent them at a college not far from Fort Walton Beach/Destin.

Of course when school was not in...we were in Destin. And my friend, well, lets just say she is truly one of those girls that guys take one look at and want to marry and have their babies. She is gorgeous. She attracted attention everywhere we went. And our favorite night spot was the Hogsbreath, which had a great band. So, after dinner, that is where you would find us. Not bar hopping...just right there.

I cannot even tell you how many free drinks I was given just to get her name out of me. Or just because we were together. Sometimes it was rather annoying. Guys wanted me to introduce them. It was relentless. One time I even had to be real ugly. It was a rugby team. A rugby TEAM all trying to pick up my friend. TEAM. I had to be scary Autumn to get rid of them. (Of course it worked...I'm very good at it.)
And me? Well, the morning after...when we would go to breakfast? Yes. All the old guys are out eating breakfast.

And they all wanted to buy mine for me.
Humiliating.

So one morning, I looked over at my friend and asked...."What??? Do I have a sign on my back that says "Medicare Provider???""

Oh yes I did. And it stuck.

But on the bright side....

I've never been offered a ride on some hot gramps scooter.
(Although I've had plenty of offers to go for a ride on their motorcycles.)