With a complete lack of fanfare, with zero warning or even a hushed announcement, I have somehow stumbled into adulthood. I’m a month into my 43rd year on this wildly silly little planet, but I would be dishonest if I did not say that I truly feel like I am still, somehow, 16 years old. I’ve written of this before, a post called “When Does Adulthood Begin?” back at the end of March, and if you’ve not yet read it, I encourage you to do so by clicking the little link below.
At any rate, something dawned on me over the last month since my birthday:
Life is higher education, and we never stop learning from the courses we take without ever having signed up to take them.
There’s the rub, we never signed up for them, did we? Life throws them at us, enrolls us as though we’re just along for the ride and we’ve no choice but to do what we’re told. The courses are bizarre ones, always unexpected, and the course catalog is looooooooooong my dudes, I mean LONG. Everyone’s schedule will look different, we’ll all be taking different classes, some of us will be valedictorians, others will be right on the edge of feeling like we’re flunking out, and the weirdest part is, there’s no graduation. Nope, this is the long haul friendo, you’re in it til you’re napping in dirt for the forever sleep, so buckle in.
In an attempt to prepare you, to illuminate one of the many paths you’re higher education might take you, I thought it best to create a little syllabus of sorts. This might not apply to you, and that’s fine, but some variation of it will. These are the courses that are capital R REQUIRED for study in my life, those that I woke one morning to find myself enrolled in almost like one of those dreams where you think you have a final in a course you didn’t know you were taking and so you get sweaty and breathe weird and wake in a panic with drool on your pillow until you shake yourself and realize IT WAS JUST A DREAM. Only this isn’t a dream, this is real, and this is crazy, and you can pinch yourself all you like, you ain’t wakin up from this one. Anyway, here’s the mock syllabus for the higher education that is life, the classes I’m taking without understanding how the hell I got here, and where the hell my pants are:
Dishes 101 - You think this is an easy one, don’t you? Think this is a safety class you can toss into your schedule to get the credits and that coveted Easy A so you can pad your GPA for the inevitable shit shows that will soon follow. Wrong. Dead fuckin’ wrong my friends. You’ll be doing more dishes than you ever thought humanly possible. You’ll fill, empty, refill, empty that dishwasher so many times you will lose all rational connection to time. You’ll gripe every time you open it after a cycle and wonder why the hell Bosch doesn’t dry the god damn dishes, and so you’ll grab a towel and get the little lakes on top of your tea mugs off, before they spill all over the dry dishes below. You’ll do even more when your wife opens a micro-bakery in your home and requires giant Cambros (you’ll say Cambros like it’s a normal thing everyone says too, right?) to hold all her dough and you’ll come to learn that sourdough and its starter is literally stronger than concrete when it hardens and you won’t believe how impossible it is to scrap from the bottom corner of a stupid square plastic food safe bin. You’ll buy dish gloves, fancy ones that cost like $9 a pair and are chemical rated but still somehow get tiny holes in the thumb and you’ll then learn the art of putting superglue over the holes because you’re too poor to just buy new ones at $9 a pop. Easy A my ass. This one never stops giving lessons, and it feels like an internship without end.
Meal Planning 105 - Every week will feel new, like some virgin landscape untouched by the rough hands of humanity, and you’ll stare at a blank sheet of scratch paper as though you’ve never made a meal in your life. “What do we have SUNDAYS?” you’ll say, before asking aloud how many times you can use Popcorn as a side dish? How many days is cooked chicken good for in the fridge, you’ll wonder, how many different ways can we make tacos? You’ll plan it out finally, learn the intricacies of balancing a week of meals perfectly so nothing gets wasted and you don’t need to spend $1500 a month on food that mostly goes bad sitting in the fridge, and then, you’ll be challenged with the Pop Quiz that is some random sporting event or school event or minor disaster that derails your entire plan to the point where you end up eating Chinese takeout or scrambled eggs and old carrots for dinner just because you can’t be bothered to deal with real food on your real list when you don’t even have a moment to think until 7:00pm at night on a school night before a project is due that the kids had a month to work on but chose the last gasps of evening before the due date to begin. Extra credit available to any who buy Costco sized boxes of Tupperware containers in all shapes and sizes and somehow manage to find a drawer that can fit them all after you play Tetris trying to figure it out.
Pet Persuasion 201 - This class sucks, but you’ll take it anyway, it’s a pre-req, and you’ll end up laughing about it later. Maybe. This is the lost art of convincing your pet to do stuff you want and need it to do, and then somehow manufacturing patience when they are assholes and do not. This is a hands-on demonstration of how to stand in the freezing cold/pouring rain/boiling heat waiting for your animal to use the bathroom in a special part of the yard you designated for them to and then yelling GO POTTY a thousand times into the 2:35am air while they stare at you, then grab a ball, then run around, then stand by you, then scratch to get in so you finally give in and let the back in and then 9 minutes later they cry to go out again. This is the Sisyphean task and you’ll never get that rock to the top, so just find joy in the journey. They sure are cute though.
Your Partner’s Passions 301 - Oh this one is a doozy and you’ll actually enjoy it. I use words like inclusions now. I know within 5-10 grams, exactly what 600 grams of cubed cheddar cheese looks like without even needing the scale. I know the optimal time to stretch and fold, how to make rice flour at home, how many minutes until you de-steam your oven for the perfect oven spring. I say Oven Spring in sentences. Baking is my partner’s passion, so it is now mine. Sarah knows the names of the entire lineup for Liverpool FC, she knows when it’s strange that someone’s not playing, she knows a lot of the chants, the schedule, and watches every game she’s able to with the exception of the 5:30am games because passion, especially someone else’s, can only take you so far. To support someone, you must try to love what they love, and this class is about how to do that, and how to make it seem effortless. Strangely, it becomes this after a time, as theirs become yours and yours become theirs.
Small Talk Avoidance 401 - An advanced level course that requires many to step out of their comfort zones. This is how to avoid small talk with those you don’t want to small talk with, and you’ll learn things like “hiding behind a grocery aisle,” “pretending to be on your phone,” and “leaving things in the mailbox so you don’t have to actually talk when they pick them up.” There is no final exam on this, just a constant barrage of learn on the job type scenarios that will test even the proudest avoider. Small talk is the vacuum of life, and mastering this will do wonders for your peace of mind.
Teenage Slang 501 - You’ll fail this. Just warning you in advance, you’re gonna fail and you’re gonna look like you’re 16 years older than you are when you even try. Still, you have to try, if not to speak it fluently, but to understand it whilst it is being spoken. Think of this like the Duolingo course you took a week before you left for a foreign country even though you know damn well you’re going to sound like an imbecile every time you open your mouth. All you’ll be able to do is pick out bits and pieces of what the hell they’re saying to try to have some small semblance of an idea if they are talking shit about you, planning a bank robbery, or suddenly finding Jesus. Some vocab you should know going in, but please know this list will be ever-changing and never, ever, accurately updated: On God, Bussin’, No Cap, BET, I’m gonna dip, Catch Me Dead, Rizz, and many, many more. Warning, speak these aloud and you’ll instantly be ridiculed and called old, or told you have Millenial Humor, even though you’re not really one.
Your Parents Become Children Seminar - Advanced level stuff here, and some aren’t even lucky, or unlucky I suppose it depends on how far into this course you get) enough to take. This course is a long, sprawling seminar that will take place over many years as your own parents turn back into children, and somehow, you then assume the role of parent to them. Some course sections you’ll enjoy: Waiting for them to remember their Apple ID Password, Teaching them how to flip the camera around on FaceTime, What is a QR Code?, Performing favors they call minor but in reality require a complete overhaul of your entire schedule for multiple weeks to accomplish, Fixing their messes, Picking them up/Taking them to random doctors appointments they think they need, Explaining gender pronouns as some of them will tell you “their generation” doesn’t understand, Hoping they don’t get scammed by spam and phishing emails or phone calls, DON’T GIVE OUT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, Fox News is Evil and why you should care, QAnon is insane so please don’t believe everything you read, AND MORE. Buckle in kids, this is the class you’ll be taking the moment your own children get out of school and begin a life of their own, and you’ll do this until they pass on, and then you’ll be sad you’re not still doing it, or so I am told.
There are so many more exciting courses just waiting for you to take. Browse the Course Catalog, but then understand you don’t get to pick and choose any of these, they’ll be chosen for you, and no matter what you think, what you want, what you wish for, you’ll take them, you’ll learn the lessons, and you’ll call it a life.
What classes are YOU enrolled in right now? What courses do you love? Which do you hate? Which are the most surprising? I’d love to know what other things are in store for me, you who may be in a grade or two above me, you who might be just starting out. Sound off, and let’s create a syllabus of sorts, so we all know what just might be around the corner for us.
Why not, what is the worst that could happen? Detention?
We never sign up
but we still take the courses.
Life as higher ed.
A Syllabus For Our Lives | 8.4.24