Oldest guy in the room

I arrived at the hip coffee shop just as a pathetic old grubber was leaving. Obviously not his cup of tea.

As I was about to take a step backward and hold the door open for him, he beat me to the punch with exact same pantomime, smiled courteously and said: “After you, sir.”

That was it.

The surreal moment that comes to us all when you realize that you look even older than another miserable old coot and are now the undisputed heavyweight champion of codgerhood in a given public space. It was Vancouver Island’s impossibly trendy Artisanal Bean-Hole in this case, but it could just as easily happen in a dentist’s waiting room, a hardware store, a hospice. (Well, maybe not a hospice. But even there it might be a fight to the finish.)

Mentally, you still feel like the person you have been for 60 or more years: a teenager pretending to be a grown-up. You still don’t know how escrow works. Some kind of raptor? Maybe you had cereal for dinner last night.

But now they’re “after you, sir”-ing you. Because now you’re the wizzened old guy who resembles a half-chewed sunflower seed. It’s kind of funny and kind of sad, and you’re really not sure how to react to the revelation, other than remembering not to cry or laugh too violently because you’re liable to crack a rib.

I had some time to think about this while waiting for a beverage that cost more than my first car to arrive, so as a public service, here’s my suggestion on how to proceed when — not if — this happens to you. If it hasn’t already.

Find the nearest person under the age of 30. Have he, she or they sit down and take a deep breath. Then patiently explain that you are about to drop a piece of news that is going to shatter their fragile digital brain more thoroughly than a dropped smartphone on a concrete sidewalk.

Ready? Here’s the Secret of Life, kids: There are no grown-ups.

I don’t mean that the grown-ups are on vacation, or that they are hiding in a conference room with the good doughnuts. I mean they quite simply do not exist. Never have and never will.

For millennia, the global population over 60 has been pulling off history’s greatest scam, convincing the youth that we possess a magical, state-issued manual containing the secrets of the universe, when in reality we are all just winging it like a high schooler trying to write a book report on a novel based on a brisk scanning of the back cover.

According to a recent study conducted by the International Institute of People Who Look Like They Know Things, more than  87% of all public decisions are currently being made by individuals who are internally screaming for Mommy.

Back at the Artisanal Bean-Hole — not to be confused with the progressive bluegrass band of the same name — I slipped on my bifocals to read the menu and suddenly realized that everyone else in the establishment was roughly 11 years old.

They were all staring intensely at laptops, presumably launching multi-million-dollar tech startups or inventing new delulu ways to use the word “skibidi.” (I might be running low on rizz these days but I’m not quite cooked on contemporary slang, daddio. IYKYK.)

And then, disaster struck. A young man wearing a wool beanie in the unusually hot October weather dropped his organic, avocado-infused matcha latte. The cup shattered. Green liquid ooze expanded across the polished concrete floor like a radioactive spill in a low-budget sci-fi movie.

The entire café froze. Thirty pairs of youthful eyes slowly turned, scanning the room for guidance. And that is when they all landed on me.

They weren’t looking at me because I possessed superior janitorial wisdom. They were looking at me because I was wearing pleated khakis, making me the undisputed alpha adult in a 50-metre radius. They expected me to step forward, assume command of the situation and deploy an emergency napkin strategy.

Internally, I was experiencing a level of panic usually reserved for when you accidentally touch a weirdly textured doorknob in a public washroom. (At least, you hope it’s a doorknob. Don’t look back.) The terrifying truth — the truth that every single person over 60 is desperately trying to hide — is that there is no adult supervision.

Adulthood is just a giant, global game of pretend. I am a grown man who helped pay off our mortgage decades go, but mentally, I am still a teenager who is deeply shocked that the government lets me operate a motor vehicle. My emergency management skills consist mostly of making a low whistling sound, unplugging the nearest toaster and walking briskly in the opposite direction.

Under the weight of 30 millennial glares, however, I had to perform. I stepped forward, pointed authoritatively at the green puddle, and said in my deepest, most responsible dad-voice, “Step back. We need to establish a perimeter.”

The youth actually gasped. One girl started recording it for TikTok, later captioning it “Ancient Boomer Adjusts to Liquidity Crisis.” A young man in a vintage denim jacket immediately began tearing brown paper towels from the dispenser with the frantic energy of a man trying to defuse a bomb on a speeding bus.

Now, I didn’t actually help clean it up, of course. True leaders do not wipe; they delegate.

Besides, I would have needed help to get back up. Instead, I simply stood there, nodding sagely and looking like a man who has successfully just ended eight international wars like President Dopey McGropey, while my brain was actually playing a loop of the I Dream of Jeannie theme song.

Crisis averted. Or so I thought.

But having survived the Great Matcha Spill, my adult authority was immediately tested by an even greater horror: the self-service ordering kiosk.

With the cash register abandoned, I was forced to face a giant touch-screen monitor that possessed the processing power of NASA and the attitude of an ICE agent at a Mexican restaurant. The screen didn’t just want my order; it wanted me to download an app, create a profile, scan a QR code and decide whether I wanted to donate two dollars to save a rare breed of Peruvian marsh grass.

As I hovered my finger over the glass, a line of eight teenagers formed behind me. I could feel their collective youth-energy radiating against my back like a heat lamp. My vision blurred. The screen asked me to choose from among such nonsensical New Age options as “Oat Milk,” “Mylk” with a ‘y,’ and “Nitro-Sustained Lactose-Free Bio-Juice.”

I panicked. I started tapping the glass randomly with the frantic, stabbing motion of a caveman trying to kill a prehistoric ground sloth with a pointy stick. The machine started beeping aggressively. A red error message flashed: Invalid Token Request.

I knew the youth were watching. They were judging my digital incompetence. I couldn’t let the illusion of my adult supremacy shatter. So, I turned around to the teenager directly behind me, gave a hollow, knowing chuckle, and said, “Ah, the firewall must be experiencing a localized latency loop due to the Q3 server migration. Classic.”

He looked at me with pure, gluten-free awe. He actually nodded. I hadn’t experienced such a rush of street cred since 1984, when I made it to Stage 13 while playing Galaga at an arcade in Chibougmau.

I tapped the screen one hard, final time for effect, accidentally ordered four extra-large hot water cups with extra foam, tapped my credit card against the machine until it made a sad buzzing noise, and walked away with my head held high.

This is the hidden danger of the public adult imposter syndrome: if you look old enough, people will let you get away with anything.

Later that day, booked for an ultrasound to find out why my groin now resembles the face of any number of once gorgeous Gen X actresses after repeated plastic surgeries, I accidentally walked into the wrong hospital office suite while urgently looking for a washroom.

Three interns immediately formed a straight line behind me, carrying clipboards and asking if I wanted the results of the mayor’s gonorrhea test printed out or digital. I was too embarrassed to admit I just needed a toilet, so I gave a misanthropic, Hugh Laurie grunt, told them to “synergize the core pillars of the diagnostic team,” and ducked into a supply closet.

Bottom line: If you happen to spot me out in public, looking distinguished and authoritative, please do not make sudden movements. Do not ask me how to fix your plumbing, how to file your taxes or what to do about a matcha spill. Like you, I am just a kid disguised in a sensible pair of orthopaedic New Balance sneakers, praying that a real adult shows up before someone asks me to explain how dial telephones worked.

Now scram, kid, you bother me. Twenty-three skidoo.