Sydney Nikols

Winter makes my ears feel like they’re going to walk out on the rest of my head, but I refuse to invest in wool caps because they make me look like a fetus. I don’t want to look like a fetus.

My phys-ed teachers totally hated me, and frankly, I don’t blame them — I played with my hair during capture the flag, shamelessly got myself tagged out within the first 30 seconds of dodgeball, and walked a 22-minute-mile while my peers were running a seven-minute one.

Flash forward to a year later, when I have whole days where I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve even started going to the gym. It wasn’t until I bought my first pair of running shoes that I realized how much I was longing for a sense of purpose.

My general rule is this: if you “only like that one Taio Cruz song when you’re drunk,” you probably actually LOVE that one Taio Cruz song but are too afraid to admit it. It’s not impossible that, unbeknownst to you, you are Taio Cruz’s biggest fan.

What the hell is this golf-ball-sized fruit-filled thing doing on my plate, and why does it look like it’s dressed up to go to Cinderella’s ball? Am I supposed to eat it or am I supposed to put it in an expensive glass box and place it on a mantle?

I shudder to think of all the matching Nickelback T’s I saw fathers and sons sporting. (Sidenote: as it turns out, Nickelback concerts provide a hysterical exception to the “don’t wear a band’s t-shirt to their show” rule.)

It’s just a picture. If roughly half of the pictures on your Facebook are attractive and the other half aren’t, no one’s going to decide you are ugly and useless.

I realize wild banshee screaming and head-on attacks may be semi-inappropriate at this point, but that’s no excuse for my current “Oh hey Dad, didn’t see you there” attitude. Why do we all have to act like such nonchalant brats to the people who raised us?