Welcome back to the Thunderdome Opinion Center of Princeton Heights, located in the heart of South City. I’m Dan Buffa and I have a confession to make: “adulting” is a pain in the ass, or more like a pain in my lower back.

That’s right, I am getting older and starting to complain about shit. People around me would call it my Clint Eastwood seasoning starting to flourish; I’ll tell you it was just a matter of time, people, construction, and drivers before I started truly complaining.

Growing up is cool in many ways. You go to bed when you want, eat what you want, drink alcohol, drive cars, and generally chase the American Dream. There’s virtues for days, like trying to find the end of the curve in Christina Hendricks’ hips.

But there are shitty aspects to the end of innocence and teenage wasteland as well, so let me tell you all about them. A wise old balding man once said ten sounds official, so let’s stick with 10 reasons adulting is a drag.

10) Home ownership is great and all, but it also means you sign your life over to Bank Satan for good. When you get close to paying off a house, you sell it. It’s never paid off, and when it is, another loan is taken out on a fresh home. The bank smiles, bends you over the desk with the burnt coffee and thin mints, and rams it up your ass real nice like. For the apartment dwellers, good for you. Just wait until you find a girl or sweet boy, want to expand and reproduce, and adult on a higher level. Just wait. Fuck.

9) Road construction is your worst nightmare. Forget Hans Gruber and Darth Vader. Modot and their miles deep construction cones are the true bad guy in our modern world. Summer is in full swing, so every major highway is having work done. Lanes are closed, lives are changed, and nights are ruined. Drivers get more paranoid, bash into shit, and cause accidents. Speed traps grow, and cops get that ticket book out. It’s a clusterfuck. Why does it all have to happen at once? Spread the shit out. Why shut down three miles of highway for a small space of work? Construction is a bad deal. Don’t explain it to me.

8) Lawn care is required if you own a home, and it stinks. Show me a guy who enjoys mowing a big lawn, and I’ll show you a guy who needs to get laid more often. There’s nothing nice about grass sticking to your calves while you sweat profusely and hope a mower doesn’t break. There you are, chopping through a thick weed with a trimmer that is almost good enough to pass the grandfather test. By the end of it all, you are just at life, Oprah, and the old lady down the street who keeps spying on your edging technique.

7) Your body stops doing cool stuff. Remember when you used to be able to run five miles and wrestle with your best friend and bounce back like a rubber band coming off the wrist? Forget those days, because a two mile jog (silent j) will make you feel older than dirt-and the wrestling may put you in the hospital.

The aged body doesn’t like quick movements or lots of strenuous activity. Think of your body past the age of 30 as an egg that cracks easily. It sure is nice to bend over to pick up a piece of trash and hurt your back. Getting old physically is humbling.

6) Teeth care. Trust me, the dentist will look at you like a mother if your teeth aren’t taken care of. I am talking brushing, flossing, and gargling with mouth wash. Skip any of those and the metal hook she uses to scrap crap off your teeth will hurt like hell. I left the dentist one time and felt like I boxed for six rounds with Mike Tyson. I had a bloody mouth with no story. Taking care of your teeth is tedious work, but required if you want someone to make out with you. Either that or you are infatuated with lawn care.

5) You need more sleep. Since there’s only 24 hours in a day and tons of shit to do, sleep will start to grow more scarce. You’ll get 5 hours here, 4 hours there, and then a whopping six hours the next day. Sluggishness will accompany the night out with the guys that was supposed to be a wild release. Work the next week will hurt even worse. You can’t get by on a few hours of downtime. The body needs more of it. Nothing replaces sleep.

4) Skin becomes as sensitive as a rookie blogger who crumbles when he/she gets feedback that starts with “never” and ends with “write again”. In the summer, heat rashes kick your ass. In the winter, dry skin makes you scratch everything. What was once a shiny sheath of promise becomes a riddled box cover of horrors. Hold on, I need to get that one spot. Ahhhh, better.

3) Clothes may not fit as easy. Remember when you used to reach into your closet without looking, and find a great shirt that fits wonderfully. Yeah, that’s gone and done with. Shirts don’t fit right, pants ride up, and you’ll spend a few moments after getting out of the car “arranging” things that moved inside that ten minute car ride.

You’ll ambitiously buy pants that don’t fit, yet you wear them anyway, because Father Time can be beat with deadly cold stares. Outfits become projects and eventually, you just wear t-shirts. 

2) People want to talk to you all the time. Who? Everyone. Strangers, old friends, and distant family members come at you like Barbara Walters on Ritalin. They want to know about your life, goals, high school name, and why you aren’t thrilled with having your space invaded. Privacy becomes a dream….some kind of wide-eyed idea that is foreign to this invading bastard who wants to sell you a cable provider that will end up making you appreciate silent films again. Being left alone becomes your new crack, because the neighbor across the street doesn’t accept anything less than a tenacious wave in acknowledgement of their existence.

1) Expectations. As you get older, working a job merely isn’t enough. Family and friends expect you to have goals and shit, or else you must be depressed or disturbed. You also need to be dating someone or at least thinking about sexual adventures. If you aren’t, they worry that you are undecided or some shit. When you are a kid, brushing your teeth and eating your veggies is a legendary accomplishment. As an adult, it’s elementary. If you don’t have a plan, people call you a slacker.

Don’t get me wrong. Being an adult is a good time, but there are times where I wish I could just go back and be a kid again. You know, sit in that one spot, pick your nose, and just breathe for a while. Drink a milkshake and not feel your ass rattle the next day. Eat the double bacon cheeseburger instead of the Cobb salad. Wear the easy-fitting shirt instead of the safe sweater.

Sometimes, I miss the good old days where playing with toys, watching baseball, and eating pizza was a day.

Adulting can be a drag.

Thanks for reading,

DLB