Spooky season, and feeling old

My wife loves Halloween and spooky stuff, so we kicked off Halloween season last Friday.
Friday rolls around, and we decide to go to a haunted tour at CHS Field, where there are stories of ghosts haunting the tunnels beneath the field, which includes the clubhouse, batting cages, and other facilities necessary to run a baseball stadium.
It was a fun and unique type of haunted activity, with both spookiness and laughs.
When you arrive, you sign in and are assigned a group.
Our group consisted of another couple and about a half-dozen high school age boys. It was clear from the beginning they would be loud and silly like most teenage boys are on a Friday night.
But the scariest part came at the end.
Like any place you attend in 2025, there was a backdrop and opportunity for people to take their photo.
My wife took the group’s photo, and a very nice member of the teenage group asked if we wanted our photo taken as well.
He took our photo, and he mentioned to his friends that it took longer than normal because my wife had the three-second countdown flash on her iPhone.
Then the following happened: He asked my wife if she needed help taking it off.
She politely declined, and he then said to his friends, “I had to show my mom how to do it one time.”
My wife and I started laughing hysterically along with the other couple in our group.
While we are fairly confident that the teenager was not trying to call my wife old, we couldn’t help but chuckle about it.
What’s even worse is my wife is about a half-decade older than me, but I am often told she looks much younger than me.
If I am at a bar or go to the packy store (liquor store) without her, 99 out of 100 times I won’t be carded. When she’s with me, the chances of being carded go up significantly.
But last week was a subtle reminder that maybe we are growing up faster than we wish.
If we needed another reminder, on Sunday after our kickball tournament, we ran some errands. My wife, in the Hy-Vee parking lot, announced to me she was feeling old.
I would like to say she didn’t need any help with the self-checkout machines… but we only needed to call for assistance twice while at Target!