iRant: Adulthood sucks Vol.1

Adulthood sucks!
I'm glad I got that out the way sooner rather than later.

I remember being young, yeah like it was that long ago, because it was...well...that long ago.

In those days, I had no responsibilities. I had no bills, I wasn't directly affected by tax. Sex wasn't important, hell I didn't even have to care about other peoples feelings. I had no dependents, in fact the biggest expectation upon me was to get good grades at school.

Getting good grades at school wasn't much to ask, I mean, lets be honest the questions were preempted and the answers were available. I really had very little to worry about, to be bound to, or to be stressed about.

Yet for some strange reason, all I wanted to do when I was younger was to be...well...older. I wanted nothing more than to be old enough to be able to go to bed when I felt like it, sleep in late without my parents insisting I wake up to do some chore. Getting away from chores altogether. For me, adulthood was the key to freedom, the right to do as you please, when you please, the opportunity to do all the things you couldn't when you were a teenager. Adulthood wasn't only the future, it was the promise land of life...

Fast forward some 20 years and now I'm in that adulthood I so coveted...


...Dreams come true


For the most part, adulthood is as your dreams imagined. It is what your parents lead you to believe it would be "you can't until you're an adult"... it is all that...but, my bastard parents never ever told me, or let me see that adulthood actually sucks in a major way. This discovery I had to make on my own, which on its own isn't an issue, but why did I have to have my heart broken in process?


The Lane


In order to explain my angst, we have to go back some years...back to 1995. The English Premiere league was into its 3rd season and "Merlin Collection" had just released its second edition of the Premiere league sticker book. Don't ask me why it was only the second edition given that the Premiere league was into its third season because I don't know. Don't ask me why we were so crazy about having this second edition, especially as none of us even knew the first edition existed. I don't have the answers, all I know for sure was that this sticker collecting magazine was advertised on TV and was available at our local newsagents.

After marveling at the advert it became my mission to get this book. My parents were very much about teaching me life lessons, so it was never a matter of 'ask and receive', instead it was 'ask and be given a way/means/method to work towards earning it'. Knowing this, I put the request out early and was given the chore for which I could earn the money to buy the magazine, a mighty £2.50 of the Queens fine sterling.

From the moment I saw the advert to the moment I could buy the magazine was about a week, maybe a week and a half. I remember going to school after the advert had aired and conversing with my compadres about which stickers I would be getting and how quickly I'd be filling the entire book, all this prior to even having the book. I had to watch for a week and a half as all the more fortunate guys at school paraded around the school playground with their sticker books in plastic wallets and stacks of stickers on standby ready for the 'swapsies'. The fortuitous kid with the sizable collection of 'shineys' was the envy of all, how did he have so many 'shineys' you only ever get one in a pack.

My time finally came, I was almost two weeks behind, but I could catch up, not only was I enthusiastic I had the advantage of friends that had too many doubles already, I was bound to benefit from the 'swapsies' market in a big way. A friend gave me my first stack of stickers, a collection of 'not so famous' players that he seemed to keep getting in every new pack he opened. I immediately stuck those in, I was on the road to filling this book up and nothing could stop me!!

Then came economics, I'm standing in the shop after having bought my first pack of stickers and I quickly realise this £1 a pack of 6 is going to take me a while to collect all the stickers, especially given the amount of doubles that were in circulation as exampled by my friends. The season will end before I can get enough of these stickers, I mean £1 a pack? That is literally 2 packs a week on my £2.50 earnings, this compounded by the rate of doubles, I'm going to have to really hustle here...a half finished sticker book is lame.


Hustle hard


My early realisation about the economy of the realm I had just entered, forced me to go into overdrive. Everything became about the stickers...I would bet stickers, wager stickers, gamble stickers. I started with a one week disadvantage and I had to make up for lost time. My two packs a week were never going to be enough. I started using different newsagents because my local kept giving me the same doubles over and over again, my desperation made me a little paranoid about the possible schemes in place to ensure I would never be able to finish this book but would always be willingly buy more stickers.

The end of the season comes and Blackburn Rovers win the Premier League title, Alan Shearer is top scorer with 34 goals, Cantona did a karate kick on a Crystal Palace fan and Tottenham Hotspurs finished way above Arsenal (7th and 12th respectively). My sticker magazine is not complete. I have a pile of doubles. I failed to achieve me goal, I actually feel defeated.


Reality


I never bought another sticker book, the pain was too much. Well not until I became an adult that is. I was in the same local newsagent from back then and my memory was jogged about the magazine and sticker collecting fad of yesteryear. I looked around for some other collections book to get into, I'm an adult now, I'll never not finish this book, I can buy boxes of stickers now, I actually can't be defeated. I bought a magazine and 20 packs of stickers, I could have bought the whole box but I figured I'd just take 20 packs. Somehow I managed to muster the same enthusiasm for opening these packs as I had in my youth.

I got to the 4th packet before my excitement had totally waned, it seemed with each packet I opened the realisation that this was not the same became more and more apparent. I was cheating, in a fashion that wasn't in the spirit of saving, waiting, buying a limited amount of sticker packs and hoping that you didn't get too many doubles. My guaranteed win, actually came with the price of a guaranteed loss. In having enough money to purchase as many packs as I wanted, whenever I wanted, I actually killed the fun of the exercise...Adulthood sucks!