Feeling my age

Its 3pm and Im feeling down so I bail on work and head for the cafe. I buy myself a Beijing latte and some snack. I see her just then and I think, why not. I sit down across from her and say hi. Just having a conversation, I tell myself. Whats the harm? And it goes well, my stumbling over basic Chinese like "my name is..." and her stumbling over basic English like "are you married". But the conversation goes well, she laughs and smiles easily and this is all I'm really looking for. She tells me shes 33. I ask her how old she thinks I am. Something like "wo ji suela ma?" in my awful Chinese. She says wu shi wu. Excuse me, guess again, maybe I misunderstood. wu shi wu is 55. She guesses again. wu shi qi. 57. This is getting bad. I say guess lower. She says 54. I leave, now feeling down and depressed. I get to the subway, which in Beijing is considered for the common people. I take it everyday. It is crowded as I step onboard. It looks like I will have to stand all the way home. Then someone says yeye and offers me his seat. Yeye means grandpa. This is not making me feel any better. I get home feeling about an inch tall with shit on my shoes. As I enter my wife is changing a stinky, smelly diaper. She asks how my day was. I ignore her and ask her how old I look. She says, you know, you look your age. She sees I'm not finding a lot of comfort in this. She then adds but you know, for you whities we normally subtract 15 from how old we really think you look. She then moves toward the trash bin, stinky diaper in hand when the look of insight flashes across her face. And meimeis don't do math, she says.