welp, i finally broke down and joined the ipod club. my newest toy arrived via courier today from an electronics outpost in a place called new york. i have spent the marjority of my day uploading albums. if anyone knows of any neat tricks or something, let me know. i rarely read instruction manuals, they are for foreigners.
the top ten worst things about moving home:
10) everything shuts down – on weeknights, everything dies in suburbia at around 11:30, maybe even earlier. you can go into the city as often as you want, which is convenient because of it’s extremely close proximity, but bad because you still have to drive home when you’re drunk at 4am. also, people often have to work in the morning—even the sketchy kids that hang out at 711 are usually gone by midnight—leaving you cruising the street for high school girls only to find the streets empty. it’s like a billy joel song personified.
9) mileage – at school, i’m used to filling up my car with gas maybe once a month. you never drive too far unless you’re seeing a concert, and mileage is fine on the highways. livingston, on the other hand, is a petrol lover’s bermuda triangle, where driving to the supermarket burns an entire tank of gas.
8) sister – she works during the week so i don’t have to put up with her antics, but when she’s home on the weekend she’s always trying to talk to me about serious stuff and i’m way too intoxicated to reciprocate. plus she’s got some bad habits, i don’t want to defame her but she lays around watching tv all the time when she’s here and she never picks up the phone or cleans up after herself. she can be funny on occasion.
7) “don’t bring that comedy ’round here, boy!” – old people, despite having years of experience under their belts, rarely enjoy hearing my jokes. to them, my humor is “crass,” and they think sarcasm is “rude.” yeah, ok. i’m sure it is.
6) relatives – invariably, you’ll answer the phone and some relative will say, “oh you’re home! when are we going to see you?” which leaves you searching for a way to sneak through the rest of the conversation without making plans to see them. if you’re really good (like i am), your response will be “yeah…” followed by a sigh and then “mom’s not home.” the more succinct your conversation, the less opportunity for them to cram their way into your already overstocked social life—and by social life i mean tv schedule.
5) jealousy – as many of you know, my parents are divorced. they have been divorced for almost five years now. my mother moved into a development that is conveniently located 100 yards from my father’s house. she literally lives around the corner. while some people would be like, “oh cool. that’s nice that they’re both so close,” those people would be deemed retarded. in fact, it only makes both parents more jealous when you choose to do spend time with the other parent. you would think you ran their cat over when say something as trivial as, “oh i’m staying at _____’s tonight.”
4) friends, we will always be – sure, that’s what they say, but as you age your friends are rarely available to hang out. they’re either working, or taking classes, or staying in their college’s town/city for the summer. i’ll never forget the time i went out and bought a ton of spare nintendo controllers so everyone could come over and play mario kart, but then i spent the night crying because i had four controllers and only one person with whom i could play. and that person was me!
3) appointments – once you are officially “home,” you are fair game for all sorts of appointments and commitments that you have to keep. doctors, dentists, it’s like a season of pain and uncomfortability awaits you. i got home thursday and i’ve already been forewarned that i have various appointments coming up in the next month, and have had to partake in meaningless “crucial” conversations about what doctor i want to use and when i am available to be “checked up,” or whatever. it’s one of the biggest inconveniences that exists for any slothful, newly-graduated lazybones.
2) food- we all know i’m rather svelte. some call it anorexia, i like to call it “i’m just not hungry.” unfortunately, this is not language that most parents understand. they expect you to have dinner—big dinners with several courses or maybe an appetizer—with them every night (as if). for someone who’s just spent 10 months eating a bagel and soda twice a day and calling it two meals, being expected to eat 3 times a day feels gross.
1) “on call.” – well, you’re home now, which means you’re “on call” almost 24 hours a day. whenever someone doesn’t have enough time to run an errand, guess who gets called. when someone wants to talk, you can’t just ignore your cell phone because they’ll call on a land-line, and keep calling until you answer. you are responsible for answering your phone, unlike at school when you can just ignore it and say you were out. not only is this frustrating, it means you can’t party until late at night, because there’s always a chance they’ll start calling and ask you something and you’ll start stammering because paying way too close attention to what you’re saying (not that it’s ever happened). once that first paranoid notion enters your head, you might as well fuck yourself in the face because your summer is ruined.
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