Twenty-Two

(Yo. Strangerville Live is February 22. You should get your tickets. Meg and Jolyn are doing a circus routine. Something about a bearded lady and roller skates. I'm scared, too. Find tickets and info HERE.)

Skylar's medical school classmates are all 14 years old and this freaks me out because they are going to be giving every one of us prostate exams like tomorrow.

It's never really been my practice to date or surround myself with people much younger than me. For years, pretty much everyone I ever dated was my age or older. I've never understood the allure of dating someone half your age. I don't know why that's a thing.

Then Skylar came along. He's nearly six years my junior, and most of the time that's not noticeable, but it comes up every once in a while. Like the other day when I made a very clever joke about Linda Tripp and Skylar was like "who's that" and I explained it to him and then yelled something about why doesn't he follow current events and he was like "BECAUSE I WAS SIX."

Skylar is too young to really remember Princess Diana. He doesn't recall the OJ Simpson trial. Zero memory of Jurassic Park hitting the theaters. He was barely five when the Oklahoma City Bombing happened.


But the one that upsets me the most--one that I've required him to do substantial research to catch up because I will not bear his ignorance on the issue--is Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.

But you guys. Skylar is 29 years old. He's an older medical student. He peaced out of education for half a decade to have a career. His classmates think of him as wise from life experience.

Wise.

Life experience.

THIS PERSON WHO DOESN'T REMEMBER TONYA HARDING'S SHOELACE BREAKING.

Skylar has classmates, lots of them, who are twenty-two years old.

They are too young to remember 9/11.

Because they were four when it happened.

Let that sink in.

You know how people are sometimes like "where were you when 9/11 happened" and you're like "I was meeting with my financial planner to discuss retirement." Well Skylar's classmates were four.

You know. The ones who are going to give you prostate exams. Like tomorrow.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't think anyone who doesn't remember 9/11 should ever be allowed to put their fingers up our butts.

On Friday we were hanging out with a group of Skylar's classmates. I was engaged in a pleasant conversation with the husband of one of the students when I said something that apparently dated me. He paused and said, "wait. How old are you?"

"I'll be 35 in May," I told him.

His eyes widened, and in a tone of shock, he informed me that he would have never guessed I was "that old."

God bless these young whippersnappers.

And now, please enjoy a poop story.

This time in Strangerville, Eli nearly commits mass genocide in his neighborhood, Meg is like so good on the slopes, and a Mary Kay rep has an unfortunate encounter in a small town gas station.

Story

Mary Kay, by Brenda Larson

Production by Eli McCann and Meg Walter

~It Just Gets Stranger