Whats my age again, whats my age again?

Working at the skating rink has caused me to wonder what age I truly appear. The kids that work there tend to think I am in my mid 30's to early 40's. Now I will be the first to admit that working with teens does make me feel very old and out of touch. The things they do, say, and text freak me out. When I was their age I swear I was not this 'active'. Hell half the things that happen were so far off my radar that I had no idea anyone was doing these things.

Recently I had two interesting incidents:

Friday I was asked for 'motherly' advice by a tween girl, simply because I look like 'the mothering type' (her words, not mine). This really caught me off guard. Really? How do you look like a mothering type? Evidently she had loaned out her cell phone (with out telling her mother) to her boyfriend of 2 weeks with the understanding that he would return it to her at the rink. Naturally this did not happen. For the life of me I cannot understand why these kids need cell phones. Particularly a nice cell phone with Internet and texting. It was not long ago parents were putting cyber nannies on computers to keep kids away from predators, who monitors the cell? But I digress.

Saturday I was accused of being a 'teenager' with a 'teenage attitude' by a father (his words, not mine). I am still unsure how to process this one. I haven't been a teenager in almost a decade. Do I look like a teen? I dress the same as the managers, not the teens who work concessions / floor guards. The funny part is that I had no contact with this parent prior to this. It had become clear upon this persons arrival that they would be a problem. When this happens I choose to default to a member of management staff to deal with them. It is pretty sad when you are so self centered that you cannot stop having the world revolve around you and try to keep your chid's birthday party a conflict free event.

Over the course of 12 hours I had aged backwards nearly 10 years. Perhaps I am the curious case of Benjamin Button (not that I have any desire to see that movie).