Tissues and radishes

I`ve always known that at some stage I would turn into my parents - both of them - but what I didn`t realise was that at some stage on the journey I would metamorphosise into an old man from a 90s BBC television drama.

It started with the underwear. As single as I am, as stuck in the middle of nowhere as I am, I`m only just 29: I should have many years of buying useless and scratchy and ill fitting lace items ahead of me. But it`s cold: the kind of cold where the only sound you can hear hundreds of times a day is the world "cooollllldd" repeated resentfully over and over again (which is unfortunate, because in Japanese it is also the name of my ex: which leaves me a teensy bit on edge and a bit grumpy for the majority of winter). So I bought a nice, slightly fluffy thermal t-shirt to go under my clothes: ostensibly to render nice, summery clothes still wearable in the middle of December. A pretty, faded pink colour. Delicate. Feminine. Warm. And then, when I had realised just how warm it was, I realised that my legs were cold, too. And they had matching fluffy leggings. Leggings, I told myself. And leggings are cool, right? Leggings are hip. And I chanted to myself on the way to the checkout counter: I`m 29: it`s okay to wear cool, pink leggings under my clothes. It`s okay. It`s okay. Just don`t look at the old women next to you. Just don`t look and then they`re not there.

Except that the leggings were so fluffy and warm, that I started wearing them everyday, under my trousers. And when I realised that there was no elastic and they were starting to sag somewhere around the crotch area - sag down to my knee area, in fact - I didn`t care, because I was so damn warm. And when the top started to sag, and both items started fading from a pretty, fluffy pale pink to a sort of off, dubious looking white, I didn`t care, because I was so damn warm. And when the fluffiness went sort of bobbly, and the bit that held them all up gave way and started sinking down to meet the crotch - forcing me to, with no notice, pull them up with both my hands and do a little jump in the middle to get leverage - I still didn`t care, because I was so warm. Until the moment when I climbed into bed for my 4.30 nap (this is all I can manage before my heating turns on), waddled back out like a penguin and spotted myself in the mirror: white bobbled crotch by my knees and waist sagging to meet it, and one hand tugging them up by lifting my right leg in the air. Oh Good God, I whispered to my reflection. They`re not leggings at all, are they. They`re old man knickerbockers.

The second sign was the radish. It`s bad enough that my scooter has - as my dad pointed out - a basket. It`s bad enough that there`s one mirror missing, because the dude at the garage tried to impress me by "fixing it," and snapped it right off in front of my eyes. It`s bad enough that my scooter makes VRRRRRROOOOOO-eh-eh-eh-VRRROOOOO-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh sounds when I try to go above 30kmh, as if I`m committing scooter cruelty, and that I`ve tried to make it more road worthy by sticking reflective red things all over the inner parts of the wheels like some sort of training bicycle. But nothing makes you look less like a hip young 29 year old and more like a little old man from the countryside than a 2 foot Japanese radish sticking out of your basket. I didn`t even eat it: that`s how embarrassing it was. I resented it too fiercely.

The third sign was sticking tissues up my sleeve because I was scared of being caught with a runny nose, and the fourth and final sign was this morning, on my faltering, wobbling drive to work. A large car waited until I had indicated to turn right, pulled to the middle of the road, and then nipped past me - catching the back of my jacket and giving me a fright - and yet I didn`t swear and stick my finger in the air. No: I raised my hand, and I shook my fist. My whole, clenched fist. And then I screamed "Oooh, you..." and faded out into nothing. Which is - as we all know - just one step away from shouting "Why I oughta". And nobody knows what they oughta do, because the sentence is never, ever finished.

It`s been a nasty shock, frankly. One month into my 29th year, and I`ve accidentally stepped into the armchair in Last of the Summer Wine or Only Fools and Horses. And it`s not been pleasant. So I`ve pulled the tissues out, replaced the underwear, thrown away the radish, and practicised sticking my middle finger up like a nice, ill mannered youth. For the few remaining years where I still am. And my lovely, middle-aged, slightly bonkers parents: one of which lives in a series of brown leather jackets and the other of which sometimes wears black PVC in public?

If all I do is turn into them, I think I`ll be counting myself lucky.