How Do They Know?

I knew I had crossed some invisible age line the day my aesthetician asked, in a casual tone, whether I’d like my mustache waxed.

Not my eyebrows.

My mustache.

I considered pretending I hadn’t heard her, but then she showed me in a mirror, and there wasn’t much left to say except, “Sure.” Apparently, I had been growing facial hair substantial enough to attract professional attention, and no one had the courage to mention it until now.

I got in my car and immediately googled facial hair removal. By the time I got home, my phone had somehow learned about my mustache before I’d finished processing it myself. By that evening, I was being offered facial hair solutions, anti-aging serums, collagen supplements, and something called “cellular rejuvenation technology.” Apparently, my cells were also underperforming. It was a lot to absorb.

A few weeks later, I had a hearing test, which, if you haven’t had the pleasure, involves sitting alone in a soundproof booth pressing a button every time you think you hear something. The operative word being think. The technician recommended a couple of brands. I looked them up when I got back to my car. That was apparently all the invitation the internet needed. Before I made it home, hearing aid advertisements had already appeared in my feed.

At that point I became convinced my smartphone is either listening to my medical appointments or receives updates from a confidential government database. Neither possibility was reassuring.

The ads are relentless. Men get little blue pills, testosterone boosters, and hair restoration systems. Women get wrinkle cream, collagen supplements, and bras requiring an engineering degree to fasten. Everyone gets memory supplements.

I made the mistake of taking one of those online memory assessments after misplacing my keys. It started innocently enough. Do you forget why you walked into a room? Do you misplace things? Do you struggle to remember names? By question twelve I was fairly certain I needed supervision. By question twenty-five I was wondering whether my dog could legally inherit my vintage Tupperware. Then came the results. Or rather, the promise of results, for only $7.95. At that point I would have handed over my credit card number just to confirm I still knew what day of the week it was. The results appeared directly above an ad for a memory supplement. Funny how that works.

What they’re selling underneath all of it is fear of aging. And right behind fear comes hope of stopping it. Not real hope. The expensive kind. The formula is simple: every wrinkle is a crisis, every forgotten name is a diagnosis, every ache is a warning sign. Solution available for three easy payments plus shipping.

This morning my phone offered me a walk-in bathtub, a hearing aid, and a cream promising to erase ten years with deep-sea jellyfish extract. I didn’t buy a thing. That felt like a small, dignified victory.

The truth is, I don’t need a cognitive assessment to tell me I’m getting older. My aesthetician already did that when she pointed at my mustache. My audiologist confirmed it. And my smartphone apparently receives the meeting minutes.

The only mystery left is how they all found out before I did.