I’m not kidding you, I feel like crying is part of growing older.  But I’m often quite surprised at what can cause me to tear up.

Sometimes it’s annoying. Sometimes I make fun of myself. Feel free to point and laugh. I’ve also lost my ability to care what others think of me, thank goodness.

As I’ve said umpteen times in this column, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. It has really, really changed over the years and I barely look at it. I usually check it for any messages and then move on.  It’s not worth my time and sometimes if you aren’t careful, you’ve given it too much time.

Facebook now has a bunch of “groups” and  websites one can visit. I’m a member of some vintage toy groups, various DIY groups, and all sorts of nostalgia channels.

Any time of day that I’m in need of a little mindless perusing, I can click on Facebook and read something interesting. But as I said, I try to stay away at the risk of spending too much time there.

The other day, I found this site that had all sorts of vintage commercials. It is hilarious to me how some of those commercial jingles come back to you. I mean, I’m sure we heard those tunes day in and day out when we watched TV as kids. 

Some of the commercials bring back memories of hot summer days, watching game shows all morning while we waited to go swimming or something else that would keep us cool. Some of the commercials remind us of Saturday morning cartoons or evenings watching shows from the 1970s. A lot of those people from commercials like Mr. Whipple and Madge from the Palmolive commercial were as big a stars as The Fonz and J.R. Ewing.

Then I watched about three vintage McDonald’s commercials.  One of them was called “Little Sister,” and I had totally forgotten about it until I saw it again.  

Anyway, it has this almost sickeningly sweet little song that shows this kid coming home after a ballgame. He’s with his baseball team, age 10, and they all pile into the living room floor with their bags of McDonald’s to watch TV.  The little sister, age 2, clearly several years younger, is just a baby and toddles in to say hello. She is obviously intruding somewhat, but the big brother is nice and offers her a french fry. The brother seems to be a good guy, putting up with a younger sister as best he can. 

Later, we see big brother heading into McDonald’s with a date on his arm, being mocked by the sister, who is now a pre-teen and giggling with her friends about her brother and his girlfriend. The last scene shows the grown-up brother, eating with his college or young career friends at McDonalds, and as he looks out the window, sees his sister, the newly crowned homecoming queen coming out of a decorated car to get something to eat.  In comes the homecoming court, probably fresh from the football game and parade.  When she glances over to her big brother’s table, he holds up a french fry and she blows him a kiss.

I kid you not, even when typing this to you, I’m tearing up. Holy crap.

I dare you to watch it and not react the same way I did.  “Little Sister.” Type it into YouTube and watch with a box of Kleenex.

Are you all telling me that this sort of thing is what haunts our nervous systems as we age? Is this how out of whack my emotions have become?  Crying at old McDonald’s commercials?

My goodness.