I Was A 27-Year-Old Teenager On A Mission! (Pt. 8: Homeward Bound)

TODAY'S QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: Do you remember a time when you realized you'd outgrown something you used to love? Chime in at the bottom, after the post! -- Erin :)

(Continued from yesterday . . . )

Friday, July 15, 2005

3:20 p.m.

An hour ago I wondered whether I still cared about this book discussion. Now, I am sure. I don't care. I do not even remotely care. I mean, come on, who discusses books anymore? Who even reads? Didn't I hear that radio or Betamax will be the death of print any day now?

At this point, I feel like when you wait in line for hours to get into a concert or some big new movie, and by the time the main event arrives, you're so tired you fall asleep in your seat just as the newly, digitally inserted Jabba the Hutt shuffles on screen. (And the nerds in your row do not appreciate it when you start muttering in your sleep about how "Fraggle Rock is totally better than this shit.")

It doesn't seem possible, but I am over the book discussion without even going to it in the first place. How over it am I? Let's see. I'm over it like Julia Roberts is over Lyle Lovett. I'm over it like Eddie Van Halen is over David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar, and Valeria Bertinelli all put together. I'm so over it, if you climbed a magic beanstalk high into a city of clouds, then took the elevator to the 96th floor of the second tallest building in that city, and then took your $9 martini from the swanky bar of said building and climbed up the radio needle on top until you were so high over the city that you could barely breathe because the air was so thin -- well, you would still not be nearly as over the cloud city as I am over the book discussion.

That's right. I'm fickle. I'm dealing with it.

But before I give up my ridiculous charade, I'm going to do one last teenagery thing -- I am going to whine. Waah. I want to go hoooome. Not home to a messy bedroom in my parents' house, like I'd do if I weren't of age, but home to my messy, grown-up apartment. (Which is actually not so grown-up, to be honest. My husband calls it "the yuppie dorm." There's a gym, computer lab, and shared big-screen TV lounge in the building, and college students have even started moving in. The residents throw glorified frat parties on the roof with disturbing regularity, leaving signs on the door to the patio saying "Please don't bring glass. Plastic cups provided. Thanx! -- DJ Mel.")

But even if my apartment building is a glorified animal house, it's home. There are chips and salsa in the kitchen (with no security guard to stop me from eating them) and a Popular DVD waiting in the mailbox. Come to think of it, Popular is a show in which people my age pretend to be high schoolers. How appropriate. I think I'll just go home and watch other people get paid to lie about their age instead of doing it myself for free.

3:30 p.m.

On the way home, I'm feeling bad about wussing out, so I stop to console myself at the happiest place on earth (AKA a burrito place). After I ask for a chicken burrito with no rice and extra cheese and super hot salsa, the teenage girl behind the counter reaches over and stabs me in the heart with a metaphorical plastic spork.

She nods, smiles, and hands me my receipt. "Yes, ma'am."