PREDICTING YOUR FUTURE

September is back-to-school season, and with a huge influx of out of town bodies possibly reading this fine publication for the first time, allow me to offer my greetings and salutations, welcoming you with a thousand words that will likely leave you feeling a thousand times worse than you did prior to laying eyes on this page!

College is about meeting new people and doing their drugs and becoming really good at knowing who will give you the 2 for $5, 3 for $10 deals. Other than that I think it’s just a bunch of sleeping and being late to stuff and maybe cultivating a brief interest in militant veganism. If you’re lucky you maybe get to have sex with the ethnicity you’ve fetishized since puberty, but in all honesty you’ll probably just keep watching as much porn as you already do, if not more. All that being said, the youth of today got it pretty good.

As a former young person myself, lemme fill you in on the scoop, which in 1990s terms means “insight.” Basically, the fun is gonna end, and you’re gonna get old. I know, I know, not you. But actually, yes. You. I totally feel you; I still can’t believe I’m not 22 anymore, but apparently aging is just something that happens to everyone who isn’t dead. Such is life. It doesn’t mean you won’t be cool, it just means you won’t do cool things with as many cool people as often and your clothes will kind of suck. That’s not so bad, right?

Let’s say you are 22 years old right now. (Is that still college-aged?) Maybe you’re not so relevant. Regardless, 22 is still prime idiocy time, so specific details notwithstanding (because I really don’t care where you end up working), allow me to map the trajectory of the next 10 years of your life.

Three years from now you will be 25 years old. At any given point within this year you will find yourself at work after a long night of drinking and notice that your muscles ache. Your ego will go into fight-or-flight mode, prompting you to consider if you worked out too hard (definitely haven’t worked out since high school) and in that moment you will realize that you can no longer function on three hours of sleep while hung over. You will not admit this to anyone, spending the better part of the next two years attempting to prove your body wrong, to no avail.

26 will show you that you can no longer just eat donuts for breakfast and mashed potatoes for dinner. You will discover Greek yogurt.

In your 28th year of life you will notice that a specific area of your body is now serving as a constant source of mild discomfort. Knees, back, ankles, crippling depression, whatever it be that ails you will lead you to the definitely not approved by the FDA world of home remedies. You will read articles about the many uses of coconut oil, and realize that the answer to “what the hell is that garbage smell” will be attributed to the apple cider vinegar and water potion you have been drinking all week. You will Google “sore muscle bath,” and take all of them. And I’m not talking about essential oil-infused bubble baths, I’m saying you will be soaking your feet in a modest tub of lukewarm water and Epsom salt, the latter of which is just... crumbled up headstones or something. WHO KNOWS? Old people shit. Anything found on the bottom shelf of the foot care aisle just gets to go unquestioned.

By the time you reach 30, your elderly senses will sharpen, propelling you into “nesting” mode, and encouraging you to consider your financial situation, looking at where to splurge and where to save. You know you have made it to adulthood when you actually use terms like “splurge” without immediately thinking of hot, sticky bodily fluid, and once you get there you will often wonder why the hell you still don’t have any money. It could in part be due to the fact that the distribution of income in this country continues to remain heavily tilted in favor of those with an already incomprehensible amount of wealth, or it could be that you’re still ordering $9 mixed drinks and standing in long lines to buy Supreme hats. With age you will come to your senses and, like any reasonable adult, start bringing a flask to the bar to take pulls from in the bathroom, while slowly nursing a pint of something already clear and incredibly cheap.

At 32 you are properly jaded and shameless. Not shameless like “naked guy at the party” shameless, but shameless like “I’m just gonna wear this kimono every day, not in a Williamsburg ironic way, but because it is technically clothing, and requires essentially zero effort.” You will begin to stop seeing the elderly as disgusting, and begin to admire them for the absolute lack of fucks they seem to give about anything. You still care deeply what others think of you, but the lifestyle will appeal to you in new ways. You will watch old Letterman interviews of Amy Sedaris and realize that everything will be okay, because now that you aren’t spending hours upon hours manipulating people into believing you might be cool, you will actually have room to develop a sense of humor and personality that only non-lame-o’s will appreciate. You will probably be deeply embarrassed of your behavior in your early 20s, but at least everything is archived on the internet forever now, serving as a constant reminder of your dickery. Sorry.

At 33 you will pinch your neck the first time you bend down to pick up a chubby poodle at work. From there I think it’s just a gradual descent toward incontinence. You still get to watch a ton of porn though.