Eric Wang
Yeah, That'll Happen #23
My Super Sweet 22

I've been trying to think of how many meaningful birthdays I'll have after I'm 21, because right now, being 22 just makes me sad. Managed to come up with a few. Age 25 doesn't seem so bad. I'll be able to rent a car and my insurance costs go way down. When you're 30, it becomes officially taboo to hook up with high school girls. 65 might not be so bad either, the office gives you a tiny pension and a cheap gold watch, and at 68, I'll know the sweet release of death, according to my death clock. Life's is beautiful, isn't it?

I find that the older I get, the more I wish I was still in high school. It doesn't help that I live right by the local high school football stadium and get to watch Varsity Blues in person every Friday night, or that I plan my Thursday evenings around The O.C. The point is, I'm 22 now, halfway to my Facebook bastardized ten-year high school reunion, and that means I might as well be 30. And 30 is old.

Of course, one could argue that being 22 isn't so bad. 22 means you're more mature than when you were 21. And what a difference a year makes. When I was 21, I was just happy that I could get into bars. Nowadays, I refuse to go to a bar unless I'm sure we can get a place to sit, I don't have to shout over 50 Cent to have conversations with my friends, there's a waitress to bring cheap bar specials to the table, and the line for the bathroom is never long. Being 22 has turned me into such a princess.

It only gets worse from there. I had a beer with lunch the other day and didn't get carded. And this is in a town where the police get called when kids try to use fake IDs. You know who doesn't get carded in this town? Alumni. Especially alumni who are over 30. So I asked the waitress if she wanted to see my ID, and she said that it wasn't necessary. I couldn't even taste my Heineken after that.

But the thing I hate the most about being 22 is that I'm expected to be a mature adult. You know what mature adults do once they're out of college? They look for jobs. Fortunately, we had a job fair on campus the other day. A job fair is basically trick-or-treat for grown ups. You get all dressed up (costume), say hello and hand them a resume (ring the doorbell), and then hold out your goody bag (hold out your goody bag). Now, I didn't get any job offers on the spot (I think my GPA, or lack thereof, had something to do with it), but I did walk away with a Nerf football, a Nerf baseball, three flashlights, fifteen business cards, a stapler, two carabineers, two t-shirts, nine pens, and a combination lock. Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

And now, a bunch of things that seem to only happen to me"¦

- My apartment has so many flies, it's gotten to the point where they can land all over me and I don't even notice. I feel like one of those refugee kids you can feed for a quarter a day. So my roommates and I got strips of flypaper and had a contest to see who could catch the most. I'm leading the pack with five. The only problem with flypaper is that it looks really gross. I considered getting a bunch of frogs to eat the flies, and then snakes to eat the frogs, and then a mongoose to eat all the snakes. Not only is it environmentally sound, but it's also a great way to pick up girls. Seriously, who turns down an offer to see a mongoose?

- Is it just me, or does Catherine Zeta Jones gets hotter with each T-Mobile commercial? Maybe the secret to beauty is that you have to be married to a guy that looks just like his 90 year old father.

- Are people still wearing their collars popped? Are these the same guys that are still wearing that Lance Armstrong cancer bracelet? As far as I'm concerned, the only people who should pop their collars are Kanye West, Coach Bud Kilmer, and cute girls. Cute girls who think pink and green go together. I'm impressed; I thought pink and green only went together on watermelon Bubble Yum.

- Remember those Bacardi Silver commercials, where the guy whips out the Bacardi Silver manual and it tells him how to defuse every awkward social situation in the world? Sometimes I feel like the guy who comes up with all those awkward situations. And the worst part about it is, I don't really mind. If Bacardi sets up a booth at the next job fair, I'll definitely pay them a visit.

- So I joined a fantasy football league. I hope the fact that I'm 2-1 right now hides the fact that I know nothing about football. Also, I hope that if I write enough words per entry in this group sports blog that I joined, no one will notice.

- I nearly lost a free iTunes the other day because I'm an idiot. The redemption code was covered up by that silver lottery scratch off stuff, and I went at it with a quarter like it had chicken pox. Half the code was now on my quarter. Crying, I ran to my roommate Mike, who managed to decipher the mangled iTunes code. That's why he's making 60 thousand a year, and I'm still going to job fairs. I can't believe I'm 22.

- I realize this is very blasphemous for me to say, but the third season of The O.C. is getting kind of ridiculous. How does the Dean of Discipline love his job so much? When did Sandy Cohen find the time to buy a new car? And most mind boggling, how does Newport Beach, the richest town in America, have a Greyhound station? That's about as likely as Kanye West being allowed on live TV again. [Ed. That last punch line originally read "about as likely as people in New Orleans naming their daughters Katrina."� Let's see the Bacardi manual get you out of this faux pas.]


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