Being Thirty

I won’t say that I never thought I would live to see thirty.  It’s nothing that dramatic.  I just never thought I would be thirty.  For most of my life it was so far off, like Mt. Everest.  I’d heard of Mt. Everest, even seen pictures of it.  But, I doubted I would ever be there.  I just never thought my name and the number would be in the same sentence, unless it was, “An area man died this afternoon while attempting to eat thirty ghost chilis after being bet that he could not.  The man successfully ate a single pepper and then drowned to death in his own tears.”

         Thirty snuck up on me.  But, now it’s here and I recognize the signs.  So, I present to you the things I have actually said in the recent past that assure me, if there was ever any doubt, that I am thirty goddamn years old.

“Someone needs to tell that kid to pull up his pants.” (Possibly directed at Justin Bieber)

(On a Friday night) “Babe, it’s almost 9:30, what are we still doing up?”

“Babe, if we’re going to go to the pool I need you to pluck my shoulder hairs.”

“If we go to the movies now there won’t be any teenagers there.”

“People call this music?  It doesn’t even have instruments in it!”

“I’m not going to the grocery store unless we’ve organized our coupons.”

“If we make a big batch in the crock pot, we’ll have enough oatmeal to last all week!”