Stages of a young man's life

This was published a couple of years ago in a small, regional publication I helped put together, and people seemed to like it. I hope the people who read it then will bear with me while I trot it out for an encore. :-)

Stages of a young man’s life
c.2003 Kathryn Judson

1. Eat and sleep a lot. Can’t walk.
2. Can’t cross the street without holding a grown-up’s hand.
3. Finally allowed to cross street alone.
4. Can’t drive car without an instructor.
5. Finally allowed to drive car alone.
6. Go off to school to prove independence.
7. Ask for extra money from parents. Whichever parent you ask gives in.
8. Ask for more money from parents. Find that parents, now over shock of separation, have started calculating how much you’ve cost them over your lifetime. Might possibly be working on bill for services rendered.
9. Ask for handouts from grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, old friends, new friends, government, and also the parent showing the most wavering, in desperate attempt to continue to live like a dependent.
10. Finally get job.
11. Spend too much in anticipation of first paycheck. Lose face with new employer by asking for an advance.
12. Finally get a few pay periods under your belt. Slowly recovering from shock of how much is withheld for government. Reassess ideas about how wonderful government programs really are.
13. Discover the joys of independence. Declare yourself weaned of handouts. Feel better about yourself than ever before in your life.
14. Still manage to spend more than you make. Discover inconveniences of being weaned.
15. Start to get hang of living within budget.
16. Fall in love. Don’t care about budget. Budgets do not allow enough for gifts to beloved.
17. Find out the hard way that current girlfriend cares more about the gifts than about you.
18. Repeat stage 17 several times.
19. Meet woman who starts looking ahead to life with gifts but not grocery money and isn’t sure she likes the idea. Finally get it through your head that this bodes well for you – if you can stop acting like an idiot. For reasons that are not entirely clear, you have never been half so prone to stupid missteps as you are around this woman.
20. Get engaged.
21. Beloved bride-to-be who was consternating about savings account and future earnings potential finds herself, despite herself, planning a wedding that both families combined cannot possibly afford.
22. Everybody panics.
23. Wedding somehow comes off.
24. Bride and groom do not make it out the door for their honeymoon before being pulled apart by new in-laws, who have instructions on what to bring to their house for Thanksgiving dinner.
25. Finally grab your bride and escape the church. In the background, over the sounds of well-wishers, you hear your mother and hers patiently (or not) explaining to each other what they have independently decided regarding your travel plans for every holiday between now and the end of time.
26. First Thanksgiving arrives. Try to appease both families by eating early dinner at one house, later dinner at the other.
27. Eat so much you can’t walk.

Happy Thanksgiving.