Is it just me???

So, when a lady just about my age calls me "honey," does it mean she thinks I'm a lot younger - or a lot older?

When reporters write about someone my age, do they say I'm elderly? I'm not a senior citizen yet and I guess 59 is waaaaaayyyyyy past "middle age." What am I?

But back to the honey lady. I've had women much, much older than me call me "honey." It's nice. It makes me feel like a little girl (and probably I am to her). But someone my own age? It just makes me wonder. . . is she blind? Or do I look a lot better than I think I do. Or does she think I'm old enough to be her grandmother?

When my mother-in-law had her stroke, I started calling her honey. Some days she knew her name and other days she didn't. It was just a lot less frustrating if I called her honey. She knew it was an endearment. If she was having one of her off days and I called her by her real name, she wondered who the hell *I* was, let alone why was I talking to someone not even in the same room. It just was easier to relent and call her honey.

However, when my significant other calls me honey - I am on alert. Because he calls everyone honey - especially women who are being nasty to him. Like clerks. When that happens I want to shout at them, "He's being SARCASTIC, you ninnie." But I don't. When he says it to me, though, I do a mental rollback in my head of anything I have said in the last five minutes that might be considered offensive. Granted, sometimes he is really being a romantic guy and calling me by a pet name.

If he calls me Chunkie Butt, I know he loves me.

Actually, I don't think he knows my name. In the last 22 years, I have never heard him say my name.

So, I was at a gift shop this weekend, when the clerk called me 'honey' several times. She looked to be about 60. I am still wondering which end of the scale she thought I was? Old? Young?

Have I become an old lady without any warning???

Hey! The rules totally change when it's a guy calling me an endearment. Then, depending on how hunkie he is, I immediately fantasize on my good fortune!! I blush, preen, bat my eyes, and feel twittery. Sean Connery can have me! George Clooney! Antonio Banderas! Yummy! I don't even question my age with those cuties.

But a Woman. My. Age???? Total turn off.

.