I'll be fighting maturity 'til the bitter end

I consider myself to be in sort of a transition age. Things are starting to slow down a little bit. The first few years out of school didn’t seem terribly different from college (of course I mean in the sense of your social life, everything else was completely different, and much less awesome). We basically did all the same things we did in college and acted like just as huge of jackasses, but now we had a steady income so we drank better beer and went to Atlantic City a lot more often. But now we’re in transition age. People are turning into real life adults. Half my friends are married. Many have bought their first house. When people start having kids that’s when I’ll begin to feel really old. Those of course are the major results on the changeover to adulthood; I am more interested in the little difference because I think they’re hilarious.

I went to a holiday party thrown by a friend of my roommates this weekend, I didn’t know very many people there, and it was rife with examples of how life is different now than it was just a few years ago. I don’t hate wine, and it’s starting to grow on me, but in general I would usually prefer a beer so I’m always thrown off when I show up at a party and that’s all anyone is drinking (with the other featured drinks being egg nog and hot chocolate, it is a Christmas party after all). When did we stop drinking keg beer out of red solo cups? I don’t know but I sort of miss that. Food is a change as well. Not that food at a party is uncommon but in transition age you go from chips and salsa and a bag of Doritos to brie wheels, cheese and vegetables trays, stuffed mushrooms, and many other delicious treats. This is actually a substantial upgrade that I’m pretty excited about in the future.

About halfway through the party is when things started to get really odd. The host was walking around the party handing out little packets of paper. I thought this to be pretty odd until I got mine and realized it was sheet music with lyrical accompaniment to some beloved Christmas jams. Oh yes, that’s right, we were going to have Christmas carol sing-along time at this party. After all it is the most wonderful of the year and what better way to express ones joy than through the magic of song. I of course was pumped. Not oh this is going to be so festive and I love Christmas pumped, more like this has the potential to be one of the weirdest things ever and I can’t wait to see how it plays out pumped. I was right; it was totally weird and fairly surreal. It’s hard to describe but just imagine you walk into a party and 35 people are hanging out around the piano singing Rockin' Around This Christmas Tree like it was a totally normal, everyday occurrence. When did I step in to a very special episode of Full House I wonder? I of course loved every second of caroling. I have terrible voice but I really crack myself by pretending I don’t and getting really really into singing. That’s why I like sing power ballads at karaoke bars. So Dan, Matt, Jake, and I tried doing some xmas carol harmonizing, barbershop quartet style. It went well I think. I sort of wanted to go walk around the neighborhood and do some real caroling because I no how great it would be if I heard a knock on my door and opened it up to 10 or 15 drunk people singing Jingle Bells.

Just to hammer home that whole transition age thing here are some examples of my friends being immature and college-y:

- While the majority of guests arrived with a bottle of wine for the party, Dave and Jake brought a box of beer. And I don’t mean they bought a 30 pack at the liquor store, I mean the filled up a brown box from a package they got in the mail with whatever assorted beers they had in the fridge.

- One of the cheeses on the cheese tray was about the worst smelling thing ever. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that it smelled like a butthole. So Dave rubbed it all over his fingers and kept holding his hand up near people’s nose so that they thought he had poop on his hands.

- Matt got absolutely hammered on eggnog. That’s not that immature, I just thought it was worth mentioning, who drinks enough eggnog to get drunk, and how did he not vomit?

- And to totally counteract any sort of class that may have rubbed off on us at the party we went to a bar afterwards and played big booty the whole time. If you don’t know it’s a drinking game. It’s hard to explain, just know that it is extremely obnoxious and loud and probably not very cool to do in public at all.

Still got it.

*****Edit*****

I forgot to mention my favorite part of the party, Dan and Katie were pretending to be the Griswolds neighbors from Christmas Vacation.

What happened to the stereo Todd?
I don't know Margot