This is how I know I'm not an adult: I live with my parents. I have 3 pseudo-jobs, none of which the government is aware of. I assume I shouldn't pay for my own prescriptions or haircuts. I was claimed as a dependent on somebody else's taxes (nothing like "claimed as a dependent" to make you feel like the ungrateful doesn't-know-how-good-she-has-it college-educated parasite that you are).
So where does this all bring us? THE ECONOMY, of course. THE ECONOMY, which, as I don't have to point out, is in all CAPS, meaning I don't have to spell out for you its grave significance, the way someone can write dogma or Dogma or god or God and you just know it's bigger and better and sobering and infinite and heavier cause CAPS are so HEAVY and they carry with them so much INHERENT MEANING that you can infer their weighty importance without so much as a disorienting run-on sentence masking itself as clarity.
THE ECONOMY, or that big, bad, faceless entity that my generation has decided to hate and love. We hate it because we don't fully understand it, but we've heard it's to blame for our persisting post-grad loserdom. We love it because it's the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. People don't scoff at us for living at home. Our parents don't guilt us for asking to be reimbursed for the grocery shopping. Friends don't blame us for canceling because we got a babysitting gig. Not in THIS ECONOMY.
Sure, my adulthood checklist, by this century's standards, remains primarily unchecked. But I think this is as good a time as any to rework what it means to be an adult. Because even though I have definitely accepted more than one ride from my mother to a bar this month, I'm still a little grown up. Just a little. And here's how I know:
- I hate pennies.
- I appreciate naps.
- Homeless people don't scare me.
- I don't hollow out the brie at a holiday party, even though the rind is terrible. Seriously guys, it's terrible.
- I think there are more good people in this world than bad.
- I think there are more bad people in this world than good.
- I hate talking on the phone.
- I'm on mailing lists.
- I'm terrified of my credit card.
- I can't figure out Twitter.
- Sometimes I call my friends' parents by their first names.
- I think people drive too fast.
- NPR is interesting.
- Sometimes I forget to eat dinner.
- I watch documentaries by myself.
- My birthday stresses me out.
- Of course I'm going to vote.
- I used to love Law & Order: SVU but now it just scares me.
- I'm generally out of breath.
- Sure, you can buy me a drink.
I don't know if I set out to prove a point, what that point would be, or if I've gotten anywhere close to proving it. I guess this post-grad slump is just a little emasculating and I'd like to be taken a bit more seriously. After all, I'm 22 and a half.
