When I was in college my first year, I learned the basics of how to live on my own(ish). By "living on my own", what I really intended to get across to you is that you are about as alone as you would be in any other situation where there are four floors of people with varying multitudes of gender, ethnicity, and language that are always in their hallways/lounges being social and things that I just generally feel uncomfortable with intruding upon. You learn to enjoy -- kind of -- being forever surrounded by your peers. You enjoy sharing space with a veritable stranger for the first few weeks of school before you finally get tired of acting like a normal human being and start leaving piles of laundry as tall as a toddler in a corner of the room and random pieces of fruit greet you when you walk in to your room on occasion. You learn to take the stairs when the creep-o "lady-killer" takes the elevator just to avoid any awkward conversation that may arise on your way down from the fourth floor to the first. I hate stairs, yes, but I hate conversing with you more. Exercise always wins.
You may learn to enjoy your classes or in the very least your professors and fellow classmates. You learn how to make friends all over again in a completely different environment than high school because, as my parents reminded me before sending me off, "These are grown people now. These aren't high schoolers. They don't want to deal with that high school bull anymore. Which is why, honey, I'm going to have to ask you not to go dating upperclassmen because they're grown men and we all know what grown men want!" Awk-ward. You learn to curb your lust after said upperclassmen men by imagining that they've gotten around in their four years and must therefore be sporting a colorful array of STDs. Genital warts anybody? No? Okay...
So when I came home for the summer -- against my parents' will, might I add -- I was feeling ultra-mature and...stuff. I looked for a job with my younger brother whose going to be a senior in high school this year. Never got call-backs and he stole a job working with puppies right out from under my nose. You motherfucker.
Okay, acting grown up was exhausting and annoying and I was back home so why did I want to keep being the mature sober person who herds her drunk and stumbling hallmates home from a party in freezing temperatures? Sure, I got a calzone out of that adventure, but that's beside the point. The point is that when you're home, you let down your hair. So I let down my hair.
To be fair, though I've thought of murder, nobody has turned up dead yet.
Two days ago about, I took a nap and woke up with a scratchy throat and a clogged nostril. There was no drool, if you were wondering, so thank gawd for small favors. Went about my day as usual, weight-lifting and eating and what-not. Came home and aroundmidnight, I thought the world was going to end. The world ends a lot around me. Bring an umbrella for the shit storms.
First I figured it was the demonic disease-spreading children that my mother and I worked with for a summer project. Then I realized it could just as easily have been the grown-ups at the gym. I KNOW SOME OF YOU TURD BUCKETS DON'T WASH YOUR HANDS AND I AM DISGUSTED! And sick. I hate to gross you out but it was a triple whammy. Period? Check. Allergies, courtesy of Tennessee? Check. A common cold that makes my eyes want to fall out of my sockets? Triple check.
I have turned in to a full-time unpaid snot hose. My head feels like somebody may have successfully crammed a beluga whale in to my cranium and it's not a happy beluga whale. Some asshole took it upon himself to scrub my throat with steel wool. My body feels weak. And I can't. Stop. Muttering to myself.
Mom suggested I make chicken noodle soup. Folks, this is the first sign, the heartbreaking sign, that your parents deem you to be an adult. When they no longer make you soup, you are either not ill enough or you have been relegated to grown-up status. I never thought I'd see the day and damn me for the actions that pushed me toward my fate. With nothing else to do, I boiled up some chicken. I half-listened to the rest of the directions and then watched as my mother went to the grocery store with the man who only 75% of the time claims to be my father. The other 25% of the time, he adamantly suggests that I must be the daughter of the milk man, which I suppose would make more sense than his claim of finding me in the desert in a pile of giant eagle droppings. (I cannot make this up, folks. Giant. Eagle. Droppings.)
I got to chopping the celery, muttering the whole time and wondering aloud whether it was such a good idea that I was holding the butcher knife as I couldn't even manage to cut through the stalk without a good bit of elbow grease. I wondered what the number was to 911 in case I chopped off a few fingers. Then I dropped that in to the chicken pot. Next came the carrot which was just as difficult as the celery but this time, I got through it like a champ. "I am a motherf*cking chef," I told myself as I walked back in to the kitchen to pour in the carrot shavings. Then I did the onion and by the time I had all of the veggies in, the chicken was ready to take out and cut. It took me 15 minutes. There was only one thigh. Half of the way through I had to ask myself, "Who has time to do this shit, really?" Then I realized, "Me. Me has time because me wants to eat." Yes me did. After the seasoning and everything else, I actually had some chicken noodle soup. I'm not talking world-class, make Gordon Ramsay cry. I'm talking, flavorless noodles in a mostly flavorless stew with mushy vegetables. My mother makes better soup than I ever will. But she's not home. So I did it myself and, lo and behold, I managed not to poison myself. Actually, I'm mostly certain that the chicken was cooked but I'm sure in the coming hours we will find out.
I am not an adult. I am not a child. I am a thingy somewhere between an actual human being and a non-human being like children and cantaloupes and I will not reach the precipices of adulthood until I graduate college, find a job, a place to live, and I begin to pay taxes.Or I could always live like the Kardashians off of the stash of money that magically appears for no reason and I know has got to be hiding around here somewhere. Or I could stay at home, mooch off of my parents, and have them kill me off at the age of 30 when I back-sass them one to many times. However, I want a cat someday and my mother hates them which pretty much makes the decision clear for me. Time to prepare myself for more college. At least there the food is always available and I just have to show up.
Love you, Mom!
You may learn to enjoy your classes or in the very least your professors and fellow classmates. You learn how to make friends all over again in a completely different environment than high school because, as my parents reminded me before sending me off, "These are grown people now. These aren't high schoolers. They don't want to deal with that high school bull anymore. Which is why, honey, I'm going to have to ask you not to go dating upperclassmen because they're grown men and we all know what grown men want!" Awk-ward. You learn to curb your lust after said upperclassmen men by imagining that they've gotten around in their four years and must therefore be sporting a colorful array of STDs. Genital warts anybody? No? Okay...
So when I came home for the summer -- against my parents' will, might I add -- I was feeling ultra-mature and...stuff. I looked for a job with my younger brother whose going to be a senior in high school this year. Never got call-backs and he stole a job working with puppies right out from under my nose. You motherfucker.
Okay, acting grown up was exhausting and annoying and I was back home so why did I want to keep being the mature sober person who herds her drunk and stumbling hallmates home from a party in freezing temperatures? Sure, I got a calzone out of that adventure, but that's beside the point. The point is that when you're home, you let down your hair. So I let down my hair.
To be fair, though I've thought of murder, nobody has turned up dead yet.
Two days ago about, I took a nap and woke up with a scratchy throat and a clogged nostril. There was no drool, if you were wondering, so thank gawd for small favors. Went about my day as usual, weight-lifting and eating and what-not. Came home and aroundmidnight, I thought the world was going to end. The world ends a lot around me. Bring an umbrella for the shit storms.
First I figured it was the demonic disease-spreading children that my mother and I worked with for a summer project. Then I realized it could just as easily have been the grown-ups at the gym. I KNOW SOME OF YOU TURD BUCKETS DON'T WASH YOUR HANDS AND I AM DISGUSTED! And sick. I hate to gross you out but it was a triple whammy. Period? Check. Allergies, courtesy of Tennessee? Check. A common cold that makes my eyes want to fall out of my sockets? Triple check.
I have turned in to a full-time unpaid snot hose. My head feels like somebody may have successfully crammed a beluga whale in to my cranium and it's not a happy beluga whale. Some asshole took it upon himself to scrub my throat with steel wool. My body feels weak. And I can't. Stop. Muttering to myself.
Mom suggested I make chicken noodle soup. Folks, this is the first sign, the heartbreaking sign, that your parents deem you to be an adult. When they no longer make you soup, you are either not ill enough or you have been relegated to grown-up status. I never thought I'd see the day and damn me for the actions that pushed me toward my fate. With nothing else to do, I boiled up some chicken. I half-listened to the rest of the directions and then watched as my mother went to the grocery store with the man who only 75% of the time claims to be my father. The other 25% of the time, he adamantly suggests that I must be the daughter of the milk man, which I suppose would make more sense than his claim of finding me in the desert in a pile of giant eagle droppings. (I cannot make this up, folks. Giant. Eagle. Droppings.)
I got to chopping the celery, muttering the whole time and wondering aloud whether it was such a good idea that I was holding the butcher knife as I couldn't even manage to cut through the stalk without a good bit of elbow grease. I wondered what the number was to 911 in case I chopped off a few fingers. Then I dropped that in to the chicken pot. Next came the carrot which was just as difficult as the celery but this time, I got through it like a champ. "I am a motherf*cking chef," I told myself as I walked back in to the kitchen to pour in the carrot shavings. Then I did the onion and by the time I had all of the veggies in, the chicken was ready to take out and cut. It took me 15 minutes. There was only one thigh. Half of the way through I had to ask myself, "Who has time to do this shit, really?" Then I realized, "Me. Me has time because me wants to eat." Yes me did. After the seasoning and everything else, I actually had some chicken noodle soup. I'm not talking world-class, make Gordon Ramsay cry. I'm talking, flavorless noodles in a mostly flavorless stew with mushy vegetables. My mother makes better soup than I ever will. But she's not home. So I did it myself and, lo and behold, I managed not to poison myself. Actually, I'm mostly certain that the chicken was cooked but I'm sure in the coming hours we will find out.
I am not an adult. I am not a child. I am a thingy somewhere between an actual human being and a non-human being like children and cantaloupes and I will not reach the precipices of adulthood until I graduate college, find a job, a place to live, and I begin to pay taxes.
Love you, Mom!
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