How Not to Act Old

by Satran, Pamela Redmond

• ISBN13: 9780061771309
• ISBN10: 0061771309
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

How to be cool when you're afraid you've forgotten how . . . Sure, you can try to stay younger by exercising, coloring your hair, and wearing stylish clothes--but how do you respond when someone asks, "Do you Twitter?" "How Not to Act Old" gives you simple ways to come back from over the hill and to act as young as you look. Covering everything from old-people entertainment (cancel that dinner party!) to old-people communication (it's called a "voice mail," not a "message," and no one leaves or listens to them anyway), Pamela Redmond Satran decodes the behaviors, viewpoints, and cultural touchstones that separate you from the hip young person you wish you still were. This irreverent guide is essential for anyone who doesn't want to embarrass their kids--or themselves.

Excerpts

How Not to Act Old
185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame

Chapter One

Stop Using E-mail

Leave it to the evil young to get all of us old ­people addicted to e-mail, and then to abandon the form in favor of texting and Facebook. Like bikini waxing (more on that later), e-mail is proving to be one of the Great Age Divides. Old people can't figure out why anyone would text, IM, or Facebook (wait: is that a verb?) instead of e-mail; how can you be articulate while typing with your thumbs? Why would you want everything you say to be public?And young ­people hate e-mailing because it's ... old.Well, I don't care if e-mail is old; I can't stop using it. That's right, I'm addicted to e-mail, just as I am to dark chocolate after lunch and nitrous oxide at the dentist. I joined LinkedIn and Facebook and all those other ser­vices, and now I don't know what to do with them—or on them—or however you say it. So if you want to get in touch with me, send me an e-mail.Just make sure it doesn't look like this one:

How Not to E-mail Old: 10 Musts to Avoid

July 12, 2009
Dear Pam,

Thank you for inviting me to your party.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend as I'll be having my false teeth fitted that day. My teeth had been bothering me for quite some time.

You know how it is when your gums start receding and then you crack a tooth or two chomping down on hard candy. Next thing you know you need a root canal, and then a crown, and then it's just a house of cards in there.

That's what happened to me, and so I found this dentist, Dr. Marino, out in Clifton, who said he'd pull them all out for just $4,000, which sounded like a bargain to me, so I told him...

So write back and tell me what's going on with you.

Your friend,
Don
www.donjenson.com

How Not to Act Old
185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame. Copyright © by Pamela Satran . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame by Pamela Redmond Satran
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