Twenty-Six Going on Eighty

In some ways, I feel that at any moment I'm going to purchase some tennis balls and canes. It seems that upon turning twenty-six an impending sense of "old" has crept into my life like no other moment. My girlfriend keeps me young (giggity), but here are my top five reasons for feeling like a geezer on this side of twenty-five.

#5 My Bedtime

At 7:30, I take these glasses off, big boy

I was talking to the girlfriend the other night, and I sort of freaked her out. In an outburst of excitement I said, "Hey , babe! How about we snuggle down at 9:30 and read for a bit. Sounds fun?" After calming her down, I ensured her that I wasn't using bengay (despite my minty smell) and hadn't yet purchased any tennis balls. In my defense, I work...a lot and hard. It is very hard for me to party all night and still get up for work. *sigh*

#4 What excites me...

This is a very naught, naughty book. The hold hands on page 5.

There was a time when I found myself at parties with drinks, glow sticks, black lights, wads of cash, scantly clad women, and *ahem* *cough* *cough*. Now, it seems that the part of my brain that gets excited has truly dulled. As an English person I do not begrudge myself the fact of loving a good book; however, I have done a bit of couponing. I think the low point for me was the palpitations of my heart after seeing a "buy one get one free" sign. *sigh*

#3 Using the Word "Whippersnapper"

In my day, we had to text using only a number pad none of the qwerty keyboard shit

Now, I do not believe that I am an ageist, but I do find myself looking at those younger than me and realizing their naivety and wondering if I ever looked so....dumfounded for lack of a better word. I suppose it is just that I now see how I once looked: ambitious, dreamy, hopeful...and relatively idiotic. *chuckle* *sigh*

#2 Connoisseur not Drinker

One more of these and someone's going to be in my lap....for a story!

I completely believe that drunken nights on cheap Vodka and Everclear are a right of passage for college. I mean, we even came up with hooch, a drink of mixed shit with high alcohol content. "It's not about the taste!"  We yell with solo cups in hand. "It's about the party!" As I shimmy into my evening slippers, I search through my bottles of high-end, foreign and domestic beers, seeing what I would like to try. I yell from the kitchen, "Well, dear, let's try this beer. It has a low percent, but it seems to have lemon zest in it. How fetching!" There would be a cigar in this scene, but when you date a nurse, cigars are always missing from scenes such as these.

#1 The R Word

Uncle Sam had a sex change, but he still wants you

Responsibility. I'll give you a moment to stop cringing upon reading this word.....chilling, isn't it? There was a time when we all threw up our middle fingers and told the Man to do his own bidding. We listened to Mr. Dylan and the Beatles on our recently purchased record players, smoking toasts to free love and peace. Well, perhaps not that far, but we have all wanted to shank that bitch Responsibility. This R word is what makes us get early in the morning, go into massive amounts of loan debt, and decide not to go to Frankie's end of the semester party the night before our big final. However, the R word does not seem so bad to me now. It's sort of like someone who used to not be your friend, but now is. It's still kind of awkward, but you don't mind them visiting and chatting for a few minutes. *face palm*