I found this card, and it made my day, because it sums it up. Kids, they can have all sorts of excitements.
Kids: Oh yeay! It’s my birthday! I wonder what presents I will get!
Adults: Shit, a year closer to the grave. I wonder who will remember my birthday.
Kids: Today we have gym!
Adults: I am so fat. I must go to the gym.
I think we should embrace things like the new sponge, because otherwise we will focus on all the negative stuff and also being an adult IS stupid. We basically hold the short end of the stick, and little people look up to us not realizing how little we know (unless they watch the news). So here are a few of the small things I appreciate, which are a bit pathetic, but nonetheless:
- They got rid of the grocery cart locks at the store near my house. This made me insanely happy, because I am the woman always digging through her purse looking for one goddamn quarter and only finding nickels, dimes, and sometimes pennies, even though they haven’t been in circulation for years. Seeing me juggle all the things in my purse that are not a quarter (toy dinosaurs, old granola bars, tampons) someone eventually thinks “poor sod” and hands me a quarter. I give them my appreciation and of course pass on the free cart to the next person, which makes me look generous, but really I just stole someone else’s quarter, like a jerk. Thanks for unlocking the carts. I needed that.
- It makes me really happy when you use the “fast track” checkout at a store (where you scan things on your own) and IT WORKS! There is no flashing light that means the manager has to come over and unlock the machine you have inexplicably broken. No beeping sound that tells you to place your items in the bagging area when they are already in the bagging area, in the bag, can’t you tell with your amazing computer scanner/phantom lasers or whatever the shit you use to make sure they are in the bagging area? Or when the machine starts beeping and no one is around to help you, and people start to stare, and look to see that you are buying frozen pizza and chocolate for your kids who are hitting each other and yelling no you’re a duckwad, (they misheard you swearing and now think this is an actual swear). No. This does not happen because the security gods have granted you full access and you have saved yourself exactly 68 seconds. IT WORKED and that makes me feel like I’ve just won something. Also I get to leave.
- I appreciate getting carded at the liquor store! Actually this has not happened to me in years. But it just happened to my friend. I bet this really made her day. Maybe even for a few days.
- Two new socks, you know? Really fuzzy ones. Joy. I’m not too hard to please.
- Any form of mail that is not a bill makes me smile, the small pleasure of opening something addressed to me or getting a postcard that says, Having fun, not in jail, you?
- That fleeting few minutes where the sun goes down and the night sky is coming up and you are holding a cup of tea/wine and looking out the window. The color leans towards the paler side of indigo, and it is a magic time, and also the time you forget about being an adult at all, forget any responsibilities, and float inside the moment of whooooa, pretty.
- When you need someone to help you fix something, whether it’s a broken dishwasher or, anything really, and they come when they say they are going to come. Right on time. This makes me so happy I sometimes get all teary. Having to fix shit all the time comes with being an adult. So this is a serious win.
- That unexpected moment in fall where you realize it is the perfect jeans/t shirt/sweatshirt weather, and there is sun and a bit of a breeze, basically the best temperature ever.
- Those five minutes when your house is clean. Right before someone goes into the bathroom and destroys it. Right before that, it is really nice.
- When you make someone laugh even though they know they shouldn’t because what you have just said is totally inappropriate. Now both of you are bonded in your dickheadness but you can share it, like a piece of invisible pie. They could use this against you at a later date, but they won’t, because they know you are a good person deep inside.
I don’t think there is an eleven. There are lots of bigger things that make me happy, like when my kids are nice people or my husband gives me a compliment not to get anything or when I know I’ve written something that is actually good, or the fact that my furniture is not floating away while I get stung by hoards of fire ants. Those are bigger wins. But these small ones can sustain me for awhile, help keep out the whammies and the twittering presidents, and remind me that, being an adult is stupid. Take the wins where you find them, and run with it.