13 Signs You’re An Up-And-Coming Adulthood Dropout
You know the song ‘Beauty School Dropout’ from Grease? I think about that ballad a lot. Too much. As a kid, I identified pretty hard with Frenchie — I wanted to drop out of high school before I even knew how bad the cafeteria food, gym locker rooms, and peers in my honors classes would smell. As an adult, karma is realllllllly sticking it to me for being such a lazy, bratty space cadet my whole life by making adulthood excessively unappealing. I hate work like I hated high school — I just want it to Not. I have fantasies about moving to a cabin in the woods, drowning my phone in a large body of water, and throwing the contents of my bank account in a bag of bricks to launch through the window of Sallie Mae’s lobby. I think I want to drop out of adulthood entirely. Passionately. Do you? Here are some signs you might want to Walden the fuck out with me and start the revolution.*
1. You avoid all pants. Every pair: loose, tight. Jeans. Slacks. The word ‘slacks’ makes you want to vomit all over the nearest khakis you can find. Yet you don’t have reasonable alternatives: shorts, to the bar? A skirt…to the park? You know your hatred for pants is irrational and impractical, yet you fantasize about a world where you never have to zip a fly again as if that’s what makes a utopia: no crotch constricting for all.
2. You purge and re-download and re-purge extraneous apps. Snapchat? Too much. Tinder? I hardly know her. Instagram? Seems like a whole thing. Nothing makes you want to go off the grid more than Facebook messenger — “what the fuck do you people want from me?!”
3. You refuse to sign up for a service if it makes you sign up through a social network. “Oh tight, free music with limited ad play, in a convenient mobile and desktop app tha — oh…so you just want me to sign up through Facebook? I’M NOT A COG IN YOUR CORPORATE MACHI—” *spontaneously combusts*
4. You will not enter your credit card information for that free trial. It could be free money itself and you’d still look at the prompt asking for the last four digits of your credit card like, “Oh so what, you guys are the feds?”
5. You resist all tags. “No, you cannot put that on my timeline. No, that is not my face. NO you can — oh shit my hair looks great in that one. Yeah, I mean. You can go ahead and share that, I guess.”
6. You sweat bullets at basic check-out, card-swiping situations. You don’t want cash back, you don’t want to tip (since when do cashiers get tips? This makes you feel like a crotchety-ass curmudgeon), and you do not want to enter your phone number. You just want to give them your money. Like please, just take it.
7. You’ve grown to loathe the Sunday brunch ritual. You used to hate going to church, now you hate going to the religious pilgrimage that is the hungover hordes talking over each other over overpriced eggs and sad vegan replacements — you wonder aloud “maybe we could all just go to the park instead” and everyone looks at you like you just suggested they consider adult circumcision.
8. You’re not excited at the prospect of ~inbox zero.~ You feel like feeling good when all your emails are read is…maybe the most boring good feeling to ever have been idealized in this sad world? No? Anyone?
9. You’d rather do stuff than exercise. Running outside, playing SPORTTTTTTS, having a rousing round of Twister — okay, Twister is super corny but like, you’ll take anything over crossfit. Just please stop trying to get us to do crossfit, universe.
10. You’re increasingly attracted and simultaneously disgusted by all the box subscription services. On one hand: “yes, please deliver all of my things to my door and know exactly what I’ll like and, in general, make it so that I never have to make a decision again.” On the other hand: “no, I want to have those experiences to discover my favorite things instead of just…having my favorites decided for me like I’m a child. Oh, wait — do I actually want to be more of a self-determined adult? Is that what this is about? Hold the phone —”
11. You drop your phone and don’t make fast moves to pick it up. You just look at it, prostrated on the pavement, like ~ que sera, sera ~, low key not giving a fuck if it’s shattered because like…wouldn’t it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn’t haaave to operaaaate our phooooonnes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4sxxoJGkA
12. You tried to get rid of all your extra stuff, do a whoooole closet purge, to trim all the fat from your life. Only to realize that you’d then have to purchase replacements for those things. Oddly enough, getting rid of all the cheap stuff you bought when you were more broke doesn’t make you look less broke. It actually lands you with, well, nothing. Yeah. You’ll sit tight for a second.
13. You just want to Not. Not get out of bed for five more minutes, not choose the salad over the fries, not do the things that you know are good for you — just, Not. For a moment. And then you’ll start, and you will keep going, and you will conquer. Carpe di-fucking-em. Kick ass, take names, and — oh, fuck it.
Go do a non-thing and pretend you don’t have responsibilities. Fries are good. Eat the fries. Take a break from your phone. Chill. Just, please ‘Not’ Responsibly. 
*So long as the revolution takes place after 12 PM.
