Any person in possession of the following items must, henceforth, be older than me: real estate, a retirement plan, one or more matching sets of bras and underwear, a couch purchased anywhere other than Facebook Marketplace, health insurance, a Costco membership, self-actualization.
The recipients of any and all major awards, including, but not limited to, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, Pulitzer, and Nobel, hereby have to be born in the nineteen-eighties at the very latest. I’m talking to you, Zendaya.
Life coaches, therapists, and spiritual leaders must be my elders. I happen to know a thing or two about science, and even my brain is not, to use technical terms, done cooking. You youngsters barely have a prefrontal cortex to speak of. You cannot help people make sound decisions when you just acquired impulse control. People who give advice should be wrinkly. Or, at the very least, haggard.
It should go without saying, but all of my present and future co-workers must be older than me. If my employer hires someone younger, people will start asking her what’s hot these days, and I won’t like that! Marta in human resources thinks I’m hip, and that validation has been huge for me. Furthermore, I have reason to believe that my work crush is in talks to break up with his girlfriend, and I would rather not have to compete for his affection with a younger, hotter person who knows how to make a TikTok.
Anyone who is engaged to be married simply must be my senior. I only recently discovered that men who are mean to me are not, in fact, flirting. Imagine the riffraff you might legally commit yourself to if you are even one day younger than I currently am. Be smart and wait until you’re forty to tie the knot—or until I get into a serious relationship. Whichever happens first.
Similarly, all expecting parents have to be at least ten years older than me. It is a matter of simple logic. I am essentially a child. Therefore, by the transitive property, anyone who is younger than me is definitely a child. I don’t mean to get political, but children should not have babies. Start nice and slow with a houseplant. See if you can keep that alive. And, if you do, please tell me how.
I now speak directly to the people I graduated from high school with—when you guys have babies, it reminds me that I am capable of having a baby, which is gross and scary. Please stop.
People who take raw materials and turn them into something essential absolutely cannot be younger than me. If you are twenty and grow your own food or build canoes, and I am twenty-eight and write silly lists, what does that mean re: how I have spent my one wild and precious life?
Finally, people who are taller than me have no business being younger. Everyone knows that taller equals older. Stop being confusing.
In the event that the world’s youths refuse to comply with my demands, I only ask that you do not text me a link informing me that a former classmate has gotten engaged or that a teen prodigy has taught a robot how to love, O.K., Mom? ♦
This content was originally published here.
