How I Know I'm Getting Older

It's inevitable, time marches on for all of us. At least until I figure out what time is and how to stop it, at least for me.* Until then, though, I must recognize what is happening to me and deal with it accordingly.
   How I Know I'm Getting Older: I ask questions I never would have before.
   For example, construction crews have been putting in a sidewalk along a stretch of road just outside my subdivision. Back before there were houses here this part of town was pasture land complete with cows and not much else. No need for sidewalks. But now there are kids and schools and a big church which I'm never going to visit and sidewalks are a must.
   The construction has been going on for a month or so, they take a two days to clear the land and fit the forms, another day to pour the cement and another day to spread topsoil and plant grass. It's a system. And today they were working away by 8 AM, with the beeping and the scraping and the grinding and the blocking traffic. They're at a part of the road I can see from my front door, so I was watching them.
   Do you know what popped into my head? Not a thought about how hot it must be for these guys, or how glad I am that I don't do that kind of work, or a marvel at the exactness of the engineering that has to go into something as mundane as a sidewalk, or even how thirsty those guys must get even at 10 in the morning. None of that crossed my mind. As I stood at my front door and gazed over the cow pasture at the guy whipping around in the Bobcat and the guy with the hand-held Stop sign, I could only think of one thing.
   How much do they pay those guys to work on a Saturday?
   When I realized what I was thinking I ran to the mirror, wondering if liver spots and deep wrinkles had suddenly marred my flawless complexion. I mean, how old-man can you possibly get? How much do they get paid for Saturdays? What is wrong with me? I know that I'm becoming a geezer far before my time, but I had absolutely no idea how bad it had gotten. Next thing you know I'll be out there shaking a fist at them for blocking a lane of traffic. My lane of traffic.
   How am I gonna stop this? I don't want to wear jumpsuits or drive a huge American land yacht or wear black shoes and black socks as I mow the lawn. I want to be me. Me now, not me in thirty years.
   There's got to be a way to avoid this. Time machine... that's it... I'll invent a time machine. How hard could it be?



* insert super-villain laugh here