It's official. I am a crotchety old woman.

I used to be the girl who couldn't say no.

Night of bar-hopping Friday capped off by breakfast at the Waffle House? Sure! Dinner, movie and drinks Saturday? Count me in! Special end-of-weekend dance party Sunday night? Well, I have to work Monday morning, but OK!

My, my, how things have changed. My youth slipped away without me even noticing...until The Friday Night of Self Discovery.

One of our interns at the paper is heading for a real job, so we had to give him a send off appropriate to a budding journalist. For all you folks who have watched old movies where newspaper reporters pull flasks out of their desks, it's really not like that. How laughable!

Now bars have become so abundant we don't have to mess with flasks. So Intern Neal picked out a half-dozen of his favorite night spots and we made up a schedule that started at 8 p.m. and ended at 3:30 a.m.

The first spot wasn't too bad. Trader Jon's is a historic bar owned by an old veteran. He's got it decorated with tons of Navy memorabilia and a skeleton holding a sign that claims dem bones once belonged to the body of Amelia Earhart. I walked in with my freshly hot-rolled hair, wearing my nicest -- and only laundered -- pair of jeans and a short-sleeved black sweater. I was even wearing eyeliner, quite an event for me. I usually forget it's on and end up looking like Rocky Raccoon.

Yeah, I was looking hot. My feelings were confirmed when an older gentleman -- typical Trader Jon's clientele -- offered to buy me an adult beverage. He seemed a little tipsy, not to mention kind of effeminate, but he seemed safe enough and who am I to turn down a free anything?

I took the drink and stood at the bar with him for awhile. He patted my shoulder repeatedly, asked a friend to take our picture together and downed a few more beverages. Then it happened. "Well, I guess I'll go across the street to a straight bar and turn it to a gay bar with my presence," he said with a wink. "You're a really nice boy, 'Heidi.'"

He believed I was a man in drag. That aged me 10 years right there. Maybe I put on too much eyeliner.

The next stop was Sluggo's, an alternative spot where Buddy Holly eyeglasses apparently are all the rage. A four-man band was screaming something from the stage -- one of them playing bass guitar and singing back-up vocals without ever touching the cigarette dangling from his lips. The floor was sticky.

Out of the 75 women crowded into the room, there were probably five bras, and all of those were worn by the ones in my group. A white guy had long, matted Rasta braids and was doing a dance where you hop from one foot to the other, turning circles all the while. I think the young people call it "moshing."

And then a sentiment hit me that proved my youth was ended. Why don't these people get normal haircuts, wash off their Gothic makeup and find gainful employment?

I skipped the last four stops on the party train. Even the promise of Waffle House at the end wasn't enough to keep me going after that kind of revelation. I didn't even take off my bathrobe until 3 p.m. on Saturday.

The phone rang at about 6 p.m. It was one of the gang from work. "Hey! We're going out tonight," she said. "Birthday party at the Ambassador Club. Wanna go?" I turned her down.

After spending a few hours planning my retirement, watching Lawrence Welk reruns and downing Metamucil, I didn't feel much like partying.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who now lives in Pensacola, Fla.