I miss the good old days\u2014the days when being slammed with a double ear infection meant throwing myself on the floor and screaming in pain, while my dad warmed up the car so he could take me to the hospital, and my mom got me dressed and reassured me that I wasn\u2019t going to die from exploding eardrums. It\u2019s just not the same now that everyone expects me<\/em> to act like a grownup.<\/p>\n When I crawled out of bed at 1 am Friday morning, convinced that my eardrums were about to explode and kill me, I couldn\u2019t throw myself on the floor and scream. That would have woken up the kids. Instead, I had to tiptoe outside in the dark, get into a freezing cold car and drive to the nearest hospital myself.<\/p>\n Sitting in the hospital waiting room, it hit me: When you\u2019re five years old and you\u2019re cuddled up against your mom in emerg, you look cute. When you\u2019re 51 and you\u2019re sitting there in your pajamas because you forgot to change, you look like you should be dropped off at the nearest homeless shelter.<\/p>\n One perk of being in the Too Old To Be Coddled<\/em> age category? The drugs are a lot more fun. Along with a prescription for ear drops, I was given three Tylenol 3\u2019s to dampen the pain, and a prescription for more if I needed them. I needed them.<\/p>\n When Five-Year-Old-Me had an ear infection, my mom massaged my back, made sure the house was quiet so I could sleep, and kept my hot water bottle filled with comfortably-warm water. The 51-Year-Old-Me took the codeine-laced Tylenol 3\u2019s and fell into a disturbing, hallucination-filled sleep with my head on an old heating pad\u2014a heating pad that I\u2019d accidentally left on its incinerate setting.<\/p>\n To be clear, I rarely look like my profile picture, anyway. That was done by a professional photographer (\u201cTurn your head to the right\u2026a little more\u2026now, drop your chin\u2026hang on, let\u2019s try this with a paper bag over your head\u2026\u201d). But when I finally woke up Friday morning, I looked, and felt, like that<\/em> woman\u2019s near-death old aunt. The left side of my face and left ear were covered with weird, heating pad-induced dark red blotches, my jaw and neck were swollen from the infection, I couldn\u2019t close my mouth properly, I couldn\u2019t talk, I couldn\u2019t hear anything and I couldn\u2019t chew.<\/p>\n When Five-Year-Old-Me was sick, I got tons of sympathy from my parents. When 51-Year-Old-Me staggered into the kitchen looking like that<\/em>, my kids immediately decided it would be hilarious to move their lips funny to see if I could still lip read what they were saying. Clearly, the only person who was going to feel sorry for me was me.<\/p>\n Yes, I miss the good old days\u2014the days when being sick meant someone else\u2019s world stopped turning because they had to take care of me. On the other hand, my ear infection has cleared up, and I have a nice stash of Tylenol 3\u2019s left over that I\u2019m going to save for future injuries. Five-year-old-me had to ask permission to get a simple baby aspirin. I now have a bottle of powerful, hallucinogenic painkillers at my disposal. I guess growing old does have its perks.<\/p>\n