Sunday, December 18, 2011

4 Things I'm Too Old To Knowingly Do Wrong (and I'm okay with that)

As people go about their lives, they pick up certain skills that are so basic that it would just be horribly inappropriate to not know how to do; so basic, in fact, that it seems as though we were born knowing how to do them. As we learn these skills, we realize that there are certain rules to each skill. Some of those rules can be broken without any lasting consequences, but some of them are so basic that we should be embarrassed if we’re caught breaking them or doing something incorrectly. I’ve realized that I do some things wrong and at my age it’s not okay anymore.

#1 Laundry

At its most basic, laundry is to be done by throwing dirty clothes in a metal box we call a washing machine with some soap and you turn it on. This is not the right way to do it, and we hopefully learn this eventually while we grow up and do more laundry (or maybe your mom told you). Somehow we figure out that we’re supposed to separate white things from colored things. Although it sounds awfully racist, that’s the rule. After those things are segregated you should segregate it further by type of fabric.

By following these basic rules, you can ensure that your clothing will remain untarnished by your other clothing, and after all, when you’re an adult it’s just not okay to wear clothes that have been dyed by your favorite red New Found Glory shirt.

What I do…

When I was a twenty or twenty-one year old young man, I did my laundry mostly correctly. I had a red bin that I threw all my clothes into when I decided that they were sufficiently dirty. Then, on laundry day I’d take the white articles of clothing and put them into a drawstring bag labeled with my name. (Don’t tease me, it was a gift from someone when I graduated from high school.) Then, with my colored clothing in my bin and my whites in a blue sack, I made my way to the Laundromat to clean my clothes.

This was years ago, and it seems my habits have digressed some as of late, because these days I just throw it all in together and choose a wash setting that seems generic enough for everything, add the detergent and some “OxyClean”, I love “OxyClean”, close the door on my clothes and salute all the white v-neck shirts as if to say, “Good Luck, Bitches! You’re going to need it.”

There have been casualties. Some of those v-neck shirts have come back to me pink (not acceptable for a grown man to wear) or blotchy (also not acceptable for a grown man to wear. As I was so lovingly told by a female friend recently, “That shirt is gross.”).

Despite sending clothing I spent hard-earned money on to their certain “pink-ening”, I continue to do my laundry in an incorrect fashion. Why? It’s not because I don’t know how to do laundry. Everyone knows how to do laundry. It’s because I don’t want to take the time to do two small loads of laundry when I could cut that time in half doing just one larger load.

#2 Eating

There is a right way to eat and a wrong way to eat, and no I’m not talking about etiquette (although I could talk about how it’s not polite to talk with your mouth full and it would still be a wrong way to eat), I’m talking about what you are physically putting into your body. Most of us, when we were young, could put what ever seven billion calorie pastry, burger, or other food item of your choice into our mouth, chew it, swallow it, and let it soak into our veins and move throughout our bodies. We could then go about our lives being young, energetic, and otherwise free of worry about the toxic sludge we had just ingested. I’ve learn however, that as we grow older, we can’t just use up those calories and that there’s really no more room for any more Trans fat.

For most of the world this happens during our early to mid twenties. Of course, there are super humans who can go there entire lives without ever thinking about the crap they put in their mouths and still stay fit. These people suck. As for the rest of us normal people, we have to realize that it’s time to eat a salad instead of mini doughnuts.

What I do…

I woke up one morning and realized that there was more of me on my stomach than there used to be. For years I had accepted that I weighed 150 pounds and I never thought about it, unless I had to get a new drivers license. But on this particular morning I panicked and ran to the scale that I had never used for its intended purpose. As if it had happened over night I now weighed 175 pounds. At this moment I lost my mind and went on a vegetarian diet complete with one “cheat day” a week. Yes, I realize how ridiculous that is. As part of it, I decided to do crunches to help work off the fat gut syndrome I found myself plagued with.

After a good long week or two of that, I went back to my old ways. Now I’ve accepted my belly and I still eat terrible. For instance, I’m ate a doughnut and a caramel roll for breakfast this morning. And with that sweet future heart attack I drank a two quart jug of “Sunny Delight” or is it just “D”? I think they dropped the “elight” because it’s too hard to say.

#3 Drinking From a Bottle

Yes, there is a right and a wrong way to drink out of a bottle. I’m not talking about a bottle that you’d give to a baby. I don’t recall ever drinking out of one of those, but I’m sure it’s a skill I’ve learned. I’m talking about a run of the mill plastic bottle that a soda would be packaged in. When you pour liquid from a container, that liquid has to be replaced with air or the container will collapse in on itself. So when you drink from a bottle there needs to be a vent between your lips and the spout. (if that’s the right word)

For more reasons than one, you don’t want to put your lips around the outside of the bottle. If you do, you will get all kinds of saliva in your beverage. This is not good, unless you’re into that sort of thing. Also your chances of spilling are greatly increased. I hope no one is learning anything when I say that the proper way to drink from a bottle is to put your bottom lip on the outside and your upper lip on the inside of the spout and tilt the bottle back thus pouring the beverage into your mouth.

What I do…

When I drink anything I usually get as much as I want in my mouth then swallow. I’m not so talented when it comes to “chugging”. Along with failing at chugging, I’m not the best when it comes to calculation. At least once a bottle of soda I get too much in my mouth and some goes dribbling down my chin and onto my shirt. There’s no excuse for a grown man with little, and highly noticeable drops of his refreshing beverage on his shirt.

#4 Dating Appropriately Aged Girls

Note: I realize this isn’t quite a skill like everything else. Or is it?

Any time some one dates someone who is more than a few years older or younger than themselves the same line is thrown around, “Age is just a number”. I tend to think that this is a load of horse excrement. (My mom would be so disappointed if I said the “S” word.) Let’s get one thing straight. Age is not just a number. I recently went around asking random people if they know who River Phoenix is, and guess what, there is a certain age where everyone stops knowing who River Phoenix is. Think about a ninety year old man trying to tell his twenty-three year old trophy wife about Horehound candy. She’s not going to know what he’s talking about and she’s definitely not going to think it tastes good, because it doesn’t. There are certain things that people who are about the same age have in common that no one else will understand.

What I do…

To be fair, I’ve only actually done this once and most recently, but on the other hand, I’ve made countless “jokes” to my sixteen year old sister about dating someone from her grade in two years, which makes me disgusting.

There is an equation for finding out the lowest age a person can be to be appropriately aged for you to date and that is a/2 + 7. For those of you who, like me, don’t understand math, this means divide your age in half and add seven. I have recently discovered that I’m too old to date the person I have been sighted with by about a year.

Normally, I’d frown upon such behavior, but this time I think I’ll look anyone who judges me in the eye and say, “Suck it!” Let’s face it, I’m not going to start doing my laundry correctly, I’m not going to stop eating food with no natural ingredients, it pains me to say it, but I’m not going to stop spilling soda on my shirt, and I’m going to date whoever I want despite their age (as long as it’s legal).

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