We would not dream of kidding someone about looking Hispanic, because that would not only be insensitive but would indicate we think there’s something wrong with having dark eyes, dark hair and bronze skin.

We would not kid someone about looking obese or walking like they had multiple sclerosis, because obesity has negative connotations, and we recognize multiple sclerosis as a debilitating and incurable disease.

Yet we think it’s funny to laugh about getting old. If it’s okay to be old, why laugh about it? If it’s not okay, then should it be funny?

Lesson Learned the Hard Way

About six weeks ago we were in Middletown, Ohio, for a wedding, staying at the Manchester Inn, where the wedding would take place. That same weekend about three university track teams, in town for an area-wide track meet, shared the hotel with us. Oh, the muscular energy that abounded in that place that weekend! As we would walk down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor, they would be bounding up with their luggage.

After the wedding Friday night, upon a return from a short walk, I opted to take the stairs up to our room, but my husband chose the elevator, which was just across the passageway. A couple of young men were also waiting for the elevator, and one of them opened the door for me as I entered the stairwell. As I climbed the stairs, other athletes were coming down. I reached our room ahead of my husband. Soon I could hear him approaching amid gales of laughter. When he got in, he could hardly contain himself.

Apparently, when the “stairs” athletes saw the “elevator” athletes waiting for their ride up, they joked, “Are you so weak you have to take the elevator? Why, we just saw this like 80-year-old woman taking the stairs!”

How we laughed and laughed about that, in just about every state on the way home. We told it in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and back home in Nebraska – every opportunity we could. Sure enough, we got great laughs. My favorite part would be when my husband got to the punch line and the hearer would look at me, and say, “You? You don’t look 80!”

Funny story – until I told it to Abe, an ageless gentleman in Mississippi – a man who loves telling and hearing good jokes. My husband wasn’t there, so I thought I’d amuse Abe with the stairs story. It may have been the way I told it, but Abe didn’t seem amused.

And then it dawned on me. If I had heard the story from someone who was 40, kidding that she was taken for 60, my reaction would have been: “So what’s wrong with looking 60?”

If and when my husband tells the story again, I’ll still enjoy listening to it – because of course, it’s about me! But I won’t laugh with quite as much gusto.

Talk to me: What do you think? Am I being oversensitive about this? Have you had a similar experience?