As of May 7th, I will have been alive 14,716,800 minutes. I know this because I’ll have been alive 10,220 days and there’s 1440 minutes in each day. Voila! 14,716,800 minutes!
I only know this because I was bored and the only thing that works on my phone right now is the *calculator*- so I’ve been doing MATH, all kinds of MATH. How else can I possibly entertain myself? No Facebook, no texting, nada- so I’ve been figuring out percentages, finding averages, that sort of thing. Just a whole lot of math. It’s been agony . . . but what can you do?
Then I remembered my approaching TWENTY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY and the inevitable MID LIFE CRISIS that I know will follow and I decided to figure out *exactly* how old I was.
Those are the numbers, kids. Read ‘em and weep. I am doomed.
Now I know I go through something like this every year- my pretending it was my “twenty first birthday” every weekend for an entire summer, my refusing to check the “Age 24-30″ box at the doctor’s, my “Mid Twenties Crisis” at 25, and my flipping out at 27 because all rock stars died at 27 . . . and *I* was definitely a rock star.
But none of that was *real*- I did the same thing at sixteen, when the hottest guy in school didn’t buy my panties from a geek and whisk me away from my sister’s wedding to eat cake. What I have learned is that no matter what kind of stupid ruckus you make about any given birthday, it doesn’t help- you still get a year older.
Doesn’t reality bite? My days are numbered, kids- totally. I have realized my mortality. There’s no reason for me to celebrate my being another year older, another year closer to the grave. It’s too much to bear! There are so many things I’ve never done! I’ve never played football, never fought a war! I’ve never been shrimping, I’ve never stayed at the Watergate Hotel! I’ve never played ping pong!
Dude. I’ve never even met the president.
I think my life piqued at about sixteen;
Jesus, it was great. I was the Burger Queen and I was a hundred and twenty five pounds, even though I survived on a diet of nothing but soda pop and greasy jalapeno poppers! I’d even gotten Davey Jones to perform at my high school prom! Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I met the love of my life at the beach! I feared our love was doomed because we were never going to see each other after that summer, but there was a change of plans- I enrolled in his high school!
We hung out with different crowds and he got fresh with me at the Drive In, but when I realized I loved him, I teased my hair and smoked, wore heels and sexy leather! We both professed our love in song, right there in the ball pit at Burger King! It was heaven!
It quickly turned horrifying when i got a flat tire outside a castle and I went in to find help, only to find my gorgeous boyfriend in fishnets and stilettos, doing (gasp!) THE TIME WARP! He was makin’ a man with blond hair and a tan and I knew right away that he was after my brain! He had an ice pick, so I ran for my life!
It’s been downhill ever since.
I thought Morocco might make me happy, but I ran into this bartender I’d fallen in love with in Paris! Thinking it was fate, I quickly fell in love again! As time went by, I realized a life of excitement and wartime adventure was what I was after! My bartender and I were supposed to use some letters of transit to escape to the Americas! But then the stupid American bastard drags me out to the airport in the middle of a rainstorm and get this- he sticks me on a plane! With this dumb Austrian guy! “We’ll always have Paris”?
Yeah. Stick it in your eye. From now on I stick my neck out for nobody.
So then I got stuck in St. Augustine, having no adventures at all. I became a writer; I didn’t care about success or money, I just wanted to write- fuck everything else. But if by the ripe old age of TWENTY EIGHT, I haven’t made it as a writer, I never will! Screw the American Dream! The monotony of the hollow suburbs is too much and I feel that I am trapped in a grey, nondescript existence! This is it!
The days of masturbating in the shower and fantasizing over cheerleaders are over! I’m quitting my job and going back to Burger King, buying that sports car I always wanted! Screw my unfaithful, materialistic wife! I am going to do all the things *I* wanted to do before I gave in to this sham, this superficial farce!
If I don’t do what I want *now*, how much longer will there be? How long before I’m a mangy, flea infested cat under a street lamp, singing to the moon about my days in the sun while withered leaves collect at my feet?
Life is for living. Now I’m off to get a tattoo, buy a motorboat and a new set of golf clubs, also sign up for tennis lessons. While I am out, I may as well hit the tanning bed and get some quotes as to the price of my hair restoration surgery.
Now that I think of it, the high school’s on the way and I guess I *DO* need a birthday date- I’ll stand by my sports car with some roses and my new earring, surely one of those little fillies will go rollerblading with me!
Kisses, gang! Happy birthday to me!
XoXoXo!
