Your Matt's Guide to Being an Adult

As many of you may know, Your Matt recently turned 28 years old. That officially puts me into my late 20’s. I don’t see it that way, though. I see it as if it puts me into my pre-30’s. See, 40 is the new 30 and 30 is the new 20, and you’re not really an adult until you’re 20, so I figure adulthood comes at 30. Makes sense, right? Being in my pre-30’s means I gotta start preparing for adulthood. So I’ve been thinking, what is it that separates an adult from a punk-ass kid?

I think I figured it out. It’s not just one thing. It’s a whole variety of things that simply come with age. Here’s a definitive list of all of those things. Enjoy.

• Dressing up must always include tucking in your shirt. Keeping it untucked is much more comfortable, less maintenance, and makes you feel like you’re still a bit anti-establishment, but the fact is, to be taken seriously by other adults, you must have the shirt tucked in. How do you expect to be adult if you can’t be identified as such by your peers? Now ties, as pointless as they are, are also nice, but not completely necessary. Once you hit 40, though, you better be including that tie when you wanna look nice.
• Proper grammar is a very important, but often overlooked factor in being an adult. Personally, I like to put words together as I would speak them, such as my “wanna” and “gotta” that I’ve mentioned previously in this article. I also like to make up contractions. Why say “You want to”, when you can say “Y’anta”. It’s just one syllable as opposed to three. It’s much quicker, but oh so juvenile and redneck to boot. “You want to go ice skating tonight,” sounds so much better in an adult’s eyes than “Y’anta go eskatin’ t’nite?”
• If you like a good flavorful beer, you’ll need to knock that off. Ales and Stouts are a sign of a beer connoisseur, not a seasoned drinker. Watered-down pilsners and lagers are where it’s at for the seasoned drinker. Budweiser alone would be preferable. If you refuse to drink beer and opt for a whiskey when the bar doesn’t offer Budweiser, you are definitely an adult.
• This one isn’t confirmed, but I assume that you must start watching local news and/or the weather channel as part of a heavily regimented nightly TV watching spree. Yes, you must watch TV.. you must watch a lot of TV, and you must watch what you would have previously thought asinine and boring. Ratings for these programs are high. Adults must be the ones that are contributing to those ratings.
• Be prepared to eat things you never liked before. Adult delicacies include catfish, worcestershire sauce, walnuts, turkey gizzards, runny eggs, caviar, pimento loaf, wheat bread, summer sausage, green beans and mincemeat pies.. among other things. Odds are, you like at least one of these things already. Good for you. You’re becoming an adult.
• Time perception will immensely speed up. When you were a child, five minutes would be forever. As you grew older, 5 hours would be forever, then 5 days would be unbearable, 5 months was so far in the future, it seemed unobtainable. As an adult, 5 months will seem like days passing. Be forewarned, but just realize that it’s all part of being an adult. Cherish it.. but that might make time slow back down a bit. Cherish it.

As far as definitive lists go, this one may come up a bit short. I am in my pre-30’s. I’m still training to be an adult, so I can get away with getting bored after just a few bullet points. I’ll keep on trying though. One day, I’ll be able to justify those 5 months going by as if they were days.