Toys-R-Us Kid

"I don't wanna grow up, I'm a" oh, you know the rest. I think I've made my point.

I never really was a Toys-R-Us kid. I never actually shopped there when I was younger. It was always Target for all my toy needs. But that's beside the point. I'm trying to come to terms with the horrible fact that I've entered the "grown up" world.

Terrifying, right? I guess the more apathetic I am about my job, and the more ridiculous things I buy with my paychecks, the more I am trying to fight giving in to this. God, I have a 401k. That's, like, one of the most grown-up things I can think of. But attitude is everything, right? That's why fifty-year old men buy sports cars and run away with their secretaries, or sorry, their administrative assistants. Their attitude instantly makes them twenty-five again. Right?

When I was younger I saw adulthood in different ways. First, adults ALWAYS had around 20-30 keys on really cool novelty keychains. Often several novelty keychains and functional key fobs. Also, electronic key fobs for unlocking the doors of their cool SUVs. I always thought I'd be an adult when I had lots of keys, and a comparable number of keychains. So, let's see. Key count: 6 (decent). Key fob/chain count: 6. One is a little flashlight! Okay, so that's a pretty decent number. I don't have a car, so that automatically makes me a little less mature (Although the CTA card evens it out a bit.) I suppose I always thought the most grown-up people were janitors and landlords. Moving on.

Another measure of adulthood for me was knowing how to pick out food at a grocery store. How can a person tell whether or not that avocado is ripe? Which percentage of leanness of ground beef is right, so I can make that really good cheeseburger? And, what the hell is bouillon? I now know the answers to these and many more puzzling grocery problems. I'm not a food shopping grand-master just yet, but I'm working on it. I can cook. In my mind, this is an enormous step towards becoming an adult. When I was a kid, I knew how to bake chocolate chip cookies and (weirdly enough) make fried eggs and toast. Let's not even talk about frying bacon. I was so afraid of that as a kid, and now I realize that a slice of bacon takes roughly two minutes to cook. You don't even get horribly disfigured with burns, the way I thought you would. Cooking is much less of an adventure than I thought it would be. I guess the grownup thing for me is getting to eat food, exactly the way I want to. No more meatloaf or Miracle Whip! I'm in control now! Also, owning things like a cheese grater and food processor. And using them. Very grown up.

I guess the obvious one is getting to do what I want, when I want to. More in the sense of getting to buy whatever little thing I want to, whenever I want to. If I want that ice cream sundae, I don't have to ask for permission anymore. I may give myself guilt trips, but I'm still impulsive about buying little things like that. This works for random books from Borders as well, since I just bought myself The Fug Awards on Saturday. Obviously, I'm not looking to buy Rolex watches and Persian rugs. But, hey, ten-year old me wasn't either.

So, by my criteria of successful adulthood, I'm here. I should be happy with the freedom to do what I want (within reason) with my money. And, clearly, I am taking advantage of fewer financial constraints.

So, why do I just want to go back to the time when all I wanted was to play with toys under the covers? Those days of yore, when I used to play with my troll dolls and glow-worms, making them into a freakish, glowing family, where that one glow-worm would get banished from the settlement over something trivial, until he would rescue them all from CERTAIN DOOM, because he unraveled an insidious plot by my Ken doll, who had been brainwashed by Shredder. Then that brave glow-worm was touted as a great hero, and fed the finest Goldfish and Hi-C in all the land.

On second thought, never mind. This quarter life crisis isn't that abnormal. Who wouldn't want to go back to those days? Seriously.