The 27 year itch?
Let’s just clear the air…it’s not crabs. Glad we got that elephant out of the room.
As we roll into November I’m reminded each year by my loving family about my upcoming birthday. Usually it starts with a gentle nudge from Grandma sometime back in June with “what do you want for your birthday”. For the love of God woman, I don’t know what I want for dinner let alone my birthday. By the beginning of November it has escalated to a full blown throw-down whenever I enter a room with family members.
Seriously folks, I feel like small prey when I enter the room. Settle down and just buy me something. You’ve known me for 27 years. I’m weird and random. Anything that is shiny is bound to impress me. I like neon colors, crazy hats, fat penguins, and am a firm believer that a person can never have too many t-shirts.
To combat the screams of fury I have taken to starting a list of things that I think I’ll need come my birthday and Christmas. This year I put a paper shredder on my list. The funny thing is, all the crap I end up putting on this damn list I need sooner rather than later, but if I don’t have something to rattle off to grandma when she asks I may have an imprint of a wooden spoon on my arse. Let’s take said shredder for example. After our taxes are done each year I clean out old bills from the previous year and proceed to shred the last 12 months of our life like hell hath no fury. I take pleasure in shredding these bills; I imagine that I’m shredding small bits of the CEO’s hearts whose companies rip me off all year long with their regulatory fees and surcharges and supplemental gas charges. LISTEN LADY, I SWEAR IF YOU MAKE UP SOME B.S. ABOUT ANOTHER CHARGE I’M GOING SPIDER MONKEY ON YOU. I realize the bills are already paid and the money is already gone, but it makes me feel better; please just let me live in my world
Back to my point. This year, I turn the dreaded….dun dun….27. Can I really be this old? Can I really be this close to 30!! THIRTY!! Can I really have survived almost 3 decades without a broken bone? I certainly don’t feel this old? I certainly don’t act this old! Dude, I totally just climbed into my daughter’s playhouse the other day. And internet, you’re all “oh how cute, you were playing with your daughter”. Nope. She was totally sleeping. I was totally playing in it myself. I still sit and pick out the toys I want from the Toys R’ Us Toy book that comes in the newspaper. AND YES, I still blow bubbles in my chocolate milk too!!!
Pretty soon I’m not going to be able to check the 25-30 box. I’m going to have to move up to the 30-something box. The clincher though that will define my age are the house parties. Ya know the ones that people throw to try and sell candles or makeup or home interior stuff. To me, this is the ultimate age defeat. I have no idea why I use this as my age marker, but perhaps one day I’ll be enlightened as to my plight against these menacing parties. For now, I think I’ll head back to that playhouse and cherish the next 3 years of my twenty-somethings.