Dirty Thirty

I have been pushing the same green crayon into the (crumb-infested) crack between the worn down carpet and the antique wall with the vacuum attachment for at least two months. This isn’t my typical M.O. — usually, I take pride in my work and wouldn’t think twice about retrieving an errant wax writing utensil from its shadowy grave.

But ever since I turned 30, I’m trying not to sweat the small stuff. And since the crayon has been laying motionless for two months, I’ll probably have to do it anyway… Nonetheless, I have more important things to do — like go to the rodeo with my friends Lindsay (taking the picture) and Wayne:

Well, and work on really not letting things get to me (I’ve only been the big 3-0 for a week)…  For example: mock situation — pretend this is you. Someone walks up to you and says, “Hello.” What do you say in return?

A. “Go lick a donkey’s butt.”

B. “I eat babies.”

C. “Hello.”

If you picked “A” or “B,” chances are you are an irascible old curmudgeon living in and/or raised in Summit County. Like this lady I passed on my road bike the other day — buff enough, but it seemed she’d rather eat a dozen babies and lick a donkey’s butt twice than put together an “h” and an “i.”

Wow, lady. Are your spandex shorts too tight in certain compromising areas? Not my fault. You bought them that way.

Seriously though. Who cares. I just turned 30! I’m wiser, more witty, more awesome… I’ve got better things to do with my time, like properly caffeinate my 30-year-old more awesome self. In my case, this means deliberating for at least 40 minutes over whether to have coffee… or alcohol… coffee… or alcohol… until gimped up Tyler tells me to combine the two into what the good ol’ Italians would call a caffe corretto:

Wow. I really do think I like coffee even more now that I’m 30. As I sip on my delectable demitasse, I suddenly sit bolt upright… dude, I’m f*cking 30. OMG. It feels kind of like this, but with less cake:

By the end of this video, I’ve finished three or more of my special 30-year-old coffees. And life is looking peachier than a barrel of overripe peaches. Until I realize, HOLY SH*T, Batman, I’m f*cking 30! Not 29… 30. And this is all I have to look forward to:

I am royally hosed. I haven’t even mastered my uncaring superpowers… some people can still somehow wriggle under my awesomer, shrewder skin like impolite chiggers with credit cards, too much eye makeup and the idea that since they paid for their food, they must own the restaurant. One particular elderly woman flagged me down impatiently on the patio Monday and announced, “My coffee isn’t fresh.” Considering it was a Monday (always a continuation of the busy weekend) and we stood hip-deep in the flowing breakfast rush, our coffee maker was producing more coffee than overly amorous bunnies produce bunnies. We were lucky to have enough coffee brewed, let alone enough time to for any of it to cross the scary “unfresh” threshold.

“We just brewed it,” I said.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, giving it a dramatic sniff, as if it was full of liquid poo.

So, I retreated indoors with my indifferent 30-year-old self, dumped a scoop of coffee in a filter and slammed the filter in, pretending it was Old Lady McGrinch’s head.

When I turned around, she was leaning against the door frame, observing me brew her (and everyone else) a pot of fresh coffee. Satisfied, she squished her overly rouged lips together like two pieces of disapproving red licorice and shuffled back to the patio where she impatiently waited for her uber fresh cup of Joe.

People are so… funny. Not funny haha, but funny like “hey, smell this” and I do and it’s a cross between a blue cheese that is entirely blue and a funky, old dish rag and a cup of rotten milk inside a hockey player’s shoe. That kind of funny.

But it could always be worse… I could be 40 🙂