(I’m now older than my doctor. That’s just wrong.)

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Okay, here’s the good news: if you’re reading this, you’re getting older. That’s what live people do, unless they’re Dick Clark.

I won’t trouble you with the bad news right now, because right now, half of you are googling “Dick Clark” on your smartphone with your thumbs.

Personally, I know I’m getting older, because I’m experiencing all those attractive side-effects getting older offers. For example, at my church some people are calling me Mister Parham, even though an hour earlier I was at home eating candy corn and wearing short pants.

Along with already knowing who Dick Clark is, there are other clues that you’re now (at least technically) an adult. Much of your reading material includes the phrase “gastro” something or other. You think any woman over fifty is sexy, and any woman under forty is now “nubile.” You just say the word doughnut, and you gain two pounds.

And then there’s my personal “getting old” favorites: ear hair and eyebrow dandruff.

Some day, after I stop getting older, I hope to get to heaven, assuming the Pope’s admitting single guys that day. Once I check in, I’d really like to ask some mid-level angel-in-training about the thinking behind eyebrow dandruff. That, and snakes.

And Geraldo Rivera.

But as you sit there, reading and aging, you eventually become an adult…a grown-up. You “put away childish things,” as Dick Clark wrote long ago (at the time, he was the host of Corinthian Bandstand).

How will you know you’ve arrived? Glad you asked.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FINALLY A GROWN-UP IF…

• you got the Dick Clark joke
• your idea of a wild evening is trying to watch a movie that’s over ninety minutes long
• you realize it’s time to stop using “party” as a verb
• you can remember the lyrics to every Beatles’ song ever written, but you can’t remember why you drove to Home Depot
• you alternate between turning down the thermostat and turning up your ears
• you remember when Fred Flintstone had a gay old time…and a wife
• pizza, too late at night, can destroy you for three days
• you haven’t quite settled on the exact number, but you think the fashion world needs to agree on a maximum allowable number of face piercings
• you now have more prescriptions than pairs of Levi’s
• you pick up that ice cube instead of kicking it under the fridge
• you have to scribble reminders for absolutely everything, including your wedding anniversary and your divorce hearing
• you remember when Saturday Night Live was funny
• and you remember when American foreign policy wasn’t
• you find yourself eagerly counting down the days till your healthcare plan’s “open enrollment”
• you know who Cassius Clay, Lew Alcindor, and Opie Taylor are now
• you’re filling out an online form and you have to scroll six times to get to your birth year
• you invite your neighbor over to show off your new lawnmower
• you observe someone’s clothing, or hair, or face piercings, and mutter “do they really think that’s attractive?”
• you know that “Harold Melvin” is not a list of first names
• you remember being allowed to lose a Little League game without your team requiring therapeutic counseling
• you opt for the salad bar – on purpose – because your doctor wants you to “watch your numbers”
• when you need a product or a service, you instinctively think “Yellow Pages”
• you remember Mavis Beacon and why she mattered
• you don’t lust after your neighbor’s wife, you lust after your neighbor’s grill
• your knees seem to wake up about twenty minutes later than you do
• you remember Cat Stevens’ music, back when he was still a heathen
• you still actually spell out complicated words like “to” and “you” and “in my opinion”
• you remember what used to happen when you dialed “0” on your phone
• for that matter, you remember when you actually dialed the phone

So. Welcome, grown-up!

Now, go have some candy corn.