The other night in the Village Market I was struck by a decades-old memory pang. The creased but attractive face of a middle-aged, possibly 60ish woman in a black overcoat is what triggered it.

I was 85% to 90% certain I’d run into her back in the ‘70s, so to alleviate that 10% to 15% of doubt I did the unthinkable: I politely approached her in the soaps and Febreeze and detergents aisle and asked if she’d been running around Wilton in the mid ‘70s, or if she was a contemporary of an ex-girlfriend of mine who’d graduated from Wilton High in ‘75 or ‘76.

It wasn’t her negative reply (no biggie) as much as a resigned or forlorn look on her face that suddenly colored the mood. For she hadn’t graduated in the ‘70s but in 1989, she said, or 35 years ago. Which means she’s currently around 53, give or take.

Alas, my question had indicated (and there was no going back on this!) that her appearance, in my judgment, might be that of a lassie in her mid ‘60s.

Honestly? Fetching as she is for an older woman (she has a cute chipmunk face), she could have been 65 or thereabouts. I’m sorry but some of us look our age or younger than (especially if we’ve had some Prague touch-ups), and some of us look a bit worse for wear. And now I’d insulted this poor lady in a supermarket aisle, and there was no honest way to apologize.

Chipmunk lady had entered the market as a woman in her early 50s, a GenXer feeling pretty good about her life, and left it as someone 12 or 13 years older — a retirement-age boomer looking at a biological downslope.