The essence of getting older: stolen lamb chops and overlooked smalls

If you want to know what ageing is really like, forget knee ops, or spotting a dreaded grey pube, or the growing frequency with which one needs to pee, says Arabella Weir

Illustration by Ping Zhu

When I was in my early thirties, my father (then in his early sixties, and still full of youthful vim and vigour) stole a good 10 minutes of my life by picking over every single detail of the tale of his lodger having, unbidden, eaten the two chops he'd found at the back of the fridge my father had earmarked for his supper.

The crime was made far more heinous, in my father's view, by his "clear positioning" of the chops, their very location, he suggested, establishing that they were off-limits to anyone but their rightful consumer. At the time, the story was so stunningly boring to me that I'd happily have poured molten lava into my ears to stop hearing it.

I knew that I was never, ever going to tell a story to anyone about bits of stolen meat. I mean, like, who cares? And yet, as if by magic, I recently took considerable time out of my schedule to pin my 17-year-old daughter to the wall to bleat about mistakenly leaving some whites out of a very hot white wash. An omission I found extraordinarily annoying and therefore in need of sharing.

Come on, a 90-degree wash is a big deal. But the withering look she gave me quickly brought me to my senses. I had just turned into my father. I genuinely believed that the forgotten whites story was riveting. Stolen lamb chops and overlooked smalls are the very essence of getting older.

If you want to know what ageing is really like, forget knee ops, or spotting a dreaded grey pube, or the growing frequency with which one needs to pee. Ageing is marked more by an increasingly shaky hold on the ability to calibrate what constitutes an interesting story – accompanied by a creeping failure to judge the real importance of things that happen to you.

For example, I broke into a sweat the other day when I realised that if I drove my son to the doctor to have his putrifying toenail treated, I'd lose the parking space in front of my house. In the 25 years I've lived here I have always been able to park within view of my house but now, suddenly, for no obvious reason, that is not enough. It has become imperative that I park directly in front of the house. Imminent disaster stands to be averted if my car is right there and not at two bays' distance. Don't you see?

As with my father and his lamb chops, if I am able to relax, secure in the knowledge that the car is always just there, then order is maintained and everything will surely be OK. My son, who really was struggling to walk, asked plaintively, "Does it really matter if the car's a bit further away?" "No!" I yelled back. "Of course it doesn't matter. I just want it to be there!" Cue withering look No 2. Such things don't matter to my son.

I can't begin to explain such preoccupations. It's just a thing that happens to you. I actually did a little jig this morning when I realised that not one, but two of the stamps on the letters that had just arrived were unfranked. This Post Office error filled me with actual joy, for I am now "up" just shy of £1.30. I am not actually broke. I am very fortunate in not having to count the pennies. Yet this £1.30 feels like the best money I've ever "earned" in my life.

Our milkman delivers milk around four in the morning. Of late he's chosen not to take the empties away. Now he only does so, it seems, when he feels like it. FFS. This capricious, seemingly pointless, yet – I'm sure you'll agree – monumentally irritating decision has forced me to lose hours of sleep planning a surprise confrontation, whereby I get up around 3.30am, lurk behind the front door, wait for the sounds of clinking milk bottles, and then check through the peephole that he has indeed left the empties again. At which point I will throw the door open, grab the empty milk bottle and wave it theatrically (thereby highlighting its emptiness), while demanding an explanation for imposing on the household such a wantonly bizarre new regime. The whole endeavour strikes me as an utterly reasonable response to circumstances.

The good news for all of you out there who are also ageing is that while the process renders you spitting tacks about the insignificant things in life, it also leaves you caring less about really important stuff. So if you are plagued by questions about global warming, the Palestinian problem, or whether One Direction really will get back together after their "break", don't worry. Soon you'll shrug your shoulders and say, "Leave it. Someone will sort it out. I've got enough to worry about."

@ArabellaWeir