This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I had one of those big milestone birthdays this spring, which means yessir I am officially old now. If I get hit while crossing the street tomorrow, the newspaper headline will read: "Elderly Woman Struck by Car."

That's what happens if you live long enough. Newspapers start calling you an elderly woman when you get struck by cars.

But here's the deal. There are certain distinct advantages to being this age. Who knew? One of the biggest perks is this: There's a whole lotta stuff you just don't have to do anymore because guess what. You've already been there. You've already done that.

Here are a few examples. When you're officially old you don't have to …

• Get sent to the principal's office.

• Be a den mother.

• Go to juvenile courts with one (or more) of your sons.

• Hide in a car trunk to get into a drive-in movie for free.

• Take geometry at Provo High School.

• Run for sixth-grade president and lose.

• Tell your dad you ran into a parked car on University Avenue while wearing a drill team uniform.

• Eat oatmeal for breakfast. Unless you want to. (Which I don't.)

• Wear corrective shoes.

• Play hopscotch at recess while wearing corrective shoes with your friend Cindy Eakins (who also wore corrective shoes) because no one else in the second grade would play with you guys.

• Go to Fashion Fabrics on Center Street in Provo with your mom and wait while she thumbs through a stack of Butterick pattern books. GAH! Shoot me!

• Wear a green one-piece gymsuit in P.E. class.

• Take a shower after P.E. class so the teachers can mark you off as one of the clean ones.

• Help your kids do a science fair project the night before the science fair.

• Sell Sally Foster giftwrap.

• Help your kids do their paper routes to teach them some more responsibility.

• Make your kids practice the piano.

• Give birth.

• Read "Moby-Dick."

• Make your sons read "The Scarlet Letter."

• Wear your brown polyester Taco Time uniform to work. Especially if you don't work at Taco Time anymore.

• Run a marathon. Unless you want to. (Which I don't.)

• Do the jump splits.

• Have that plate and seven screws removed from your right wrist. (Already did it. Thanks, Dr. Huish.)

• Get a perm. Unless you want to.

• Sew a vest and an A-line skirt in Home Ec out of kettle cloth. (You were a great teacher, Mrs. Warner, but I just wasn't a very good seamstress.)

• Keep gerbils as pets.

• Go on Star Tours at Disneyland and get sick to your stomach.

• Stay to the end of a game. Or a concert. Or anything else.

• Attend that special hell otherwise known as "seventh grade."

• Weigh yourself.

• Eat dessert AFTER dinner.

• Share a room with your younger brother.

• Observe a curfew.

• Enforce a curfew.

• Go to parent-teacher conferences.

• Attend an elementary school maturation talk.

• Toilet train a toddler.

• Apologize to parents because your kid bit their kid at church.

• Even though their kid deserved to be bitten.

• Kidding!

• Dye your hair.

• Ask for permission.

• Care what anybody thinks.

It's not that I'm unhappy I did many of these things. I remember with special fondness, for instance, that time I went to a maturation talk with one of our sons and burst out laughing as if I were a fifth-grade boy myself. But it's time to move on.

And try something new.

Ann Cannon can be reached at acannon@sltrib.com or facebook.com/anncannontrib.