-Ah, October.  Autumn in the city.  It’s getting a little chilly, a bit more overcast.  The Yankees are out, but alas, life goes on.  The tourists are taking a reprieve until Christmas.  The girls are taking off those big sunglasses that make them look like mosquitoes and packing away those stupid open-toe sandals that cut their feet all summer.  The guys, well, the guys are still up to their usual shenanigans.  And I’m no exception.  I go about my daily routine as usual, no matter what the weather: Sleep, Eat, Drink, Hit on Chicks, repeat as necessary.  And I’m not the only one.  Hoards of recent college grads across the city share my routine.  We are, after all, twentysomething.

-What is twentysomething?  Twentysomething means you’re out of college, you’ve gone through your phase where you wished you still were in college, but now you’re done with that too.  You’re a “real person.”  But not quite.  As of today, none of my friends are engaged, none have kids, and none are within three years of either.  We are the gap between college and marriage, between zero responsibility and total responsibility.  And we fucking love it.  This is our story.

-My apartment is furnished by a well-known foreign designer.  His name is IKEA.  I bought a funky, comfortable chair at IKEA.  I thought it was different.  I have so far seen the same chair in at least six different twentysomething’s apartments.  I didn’t realize it came in so many different colors.  This IKEA guy must be making a fortune.

-The Mayor says we’re not supposed to recycle glass anymore.  I still haven’t figured this one out.  My apartment has a trash chute on each floor.  I live on the eleventh.  I walked to the chute the other day and dropped down an empty handle of SKYY, two bottles of Stoli, and twelve Coors Light longnecks.  The shattering explosion of glass as it ricocheted down eleven floors was deafening.  A woman came out of an apartment down the hall nursing her baby and gave me a dirty look.  “It’s not me, it’s the Mayor,” I said.  She didn’t buy it.

-For some reason my friends feel the need to lie about their age when hitting on girls who are older than us.  So even if I don’t want to, I have to become an accomplice to their lies, otherwise I’ll blow up their spot.  So my buddy runs over to me like, “Karo, see those chicks over there?  Yeah, I know they’re hot, but listen, I told them we’re 28.  So whatever you do, don’t let them know hold old we are, thanks!  Oh, by the way, I also told them my name is Rodrigo and I’m a masseuse, cool?”  So one of the girls comes up to me and now I have to fabricate seven years of my life since college, which I have a really hard time doing.  I’m like, “Yeah, um, well I graduated from Penn in 2001…um…I mean Penn Med, yeah, that’s it, Penn Medical School.  Yup, so I became a doctor and then I got married, um, no, divorced, well…widowed, yeah, that’s it.  She’s dead.  Really, really dead.  Uh, could you hold on a second, I have go to talk to my friend Seth, er, Rodrigo.  Later!”

-My buddy Chi is a black belt.  I think that’s the coolest thing in the world.  Whenever we go out and he gets really liquored up, I try to get him to kick someone’s ass.  Not just anyone mind you, only people who deserve it, like bouncers and investment bankers.  So far I’ve only gotten him to jump-kick a lamppost.  The lamppost won.  What a pussy.

-That’s the irony of being a twentysomething, though.  The power is not in physical strength, but rather, in the clipboard.  That’s right, the clipboard.  The guy or girl who stands in front of the bar holding a clipboard with people’s names on it has the ultimate power to ruin your night.  It’s funny, because one of my best friends, Claudio, recently got a job as one of those clipboard people.  Claudio will stand in front of clubs and decisively, if not arbitrarily, turn away or let people in.  I’ve known Claudio my whole life, but now I am forced to rely on him to get me in places.  Once I found myself among a group of people on line saying proudly, “Oh, I knew Claudio way before he had a clipboard.  Step aside.”  What a jackass I am.

-Let’s face it.  There were cliques in high school, cliques in college, and now there are cliques in New York.  They’re even bigger now.  Being in a clique means walking into a bar and knowing 75% of all the people in there.  Because they were the same people you hung out with last weekend.  My clique is so big it includes people I don’t even know.  Do you ever get that feeling like yours is the only clique?  I sometimes wonder, if I’m here, and my whole clique is here, then where is everyone else?  Do other cliques even exist?  Somehow I think all the other cliques are thinking the same thing…

-It’s so awkward when you run into someone that you went to high school with but haven’t kept in touch with.  Your conversations are always so outdated.  I’m like, “Um, so, are you still going out with Jim?”  “Actually, we broke up five years ago.”  “Oh, well, uh, remember Rachel’s Bar Mitzvah?  That’s was so much fun.”  “Yeah, it was.  Um, I’m gonna go get a drink.”  “Yeah, me too, see ya around…I guess.”

-Sometimes us twentysomethings have to beware of imposters.  About a month ago I was at a bar having a conversation with this chick that I thought was pretty cute.  She was a few years older than me but I refused to lie about my age.  Surprisingly, she seemed interested.  Then she scratched her face.  A glare caught me right in the eye.  And then I saw it.  A diamond ring.  Frightened, I said, “What the fuck is that?”  “Oh this?  I just got engaged last week.”  “Engaged?  What the hell are you doing here then?”  “Oh, well my fiance is meeting me here later.”  And that’s when I realized that from now on I have to Look for the Ring.  This sucks.  All I know is, someone should tell the guy with the clipboard not to let married people in.

-One of my girl friends called me up the other day really excited.  It seemed that she met one of the guys from “Real World Las Vegas” at the bar.  First of all, who gives a fuck?  I’ve met bigger celebrities at the grand opening of Staples down the block.  Second of all, there’s a Real World Las Vegas?  I didn’t even know that new shows were still on.  What’s next, Real World and Road Rules vs. Batman and Superman?

-When guys tell stories about girls to other guys, there is always going to be a certain amount of embellishment.  After all, it’s guy talk and it’s expected that every story should make the guy look like a king and the girl like a whore.  Every once in a while I’ll be listening to a friend tell a story that will be so outlandish I have to call him on it. You know, my friend will be like, “So all this chick wanted to do was have sex with me and I was like, no way bitch, get the fuck out of there, SportsCenter is on.”  And I’ll be like, “Dude, there is no fucking way you actually said anything close to that.”

-I think everyone has that friend who no one knows what he does for a living.  You ask someone and they’ll be like, “Yeah, he was dabbling a bit here and there and then he got this new job but the company went out of business, so then he went to work for his dad but he quit that, and now he’s doing a little thing on the side while he studies for his LSATs.”  Figures.  You know what I call taking the LSATs?  The get-out-of-life-free card.

-I love going out to dinner with the guys.  My frat buddies and I get together for a big steak dinner every once in a while.  It’s a fucking blast.  We all tell ridiculous stories about chicks and then get called out for over-exaggerating.  The worst, though, is when the check comes.  We always get into the argument over whether to itemize the bill or split it evenly.  It’s all game theory.  If you think that the bill is going to be split evenly at the end, you go into the meal ordering extravagantly, but hope everyone doesn’t do the same.  If you think you’re gonna itemize at the end, then you order conservatively but hope you don’t have to contribute when your friend orders Grey Goose on the rocks with extra Grey Goose.  Somehow, though, I always get stuck with a $100 tab when all I ate was a salad.

-All guys know that the most important attribute when determining whether or not to stay at a bar is the dude/chick ratio.  This can be determined upon entering a bar, scanning the crowd, and taking count:  “OK, let’s see.  Dude, chick, dude, dude, dude, chick, dude, chick, dude, dude, chick, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude.  Dude, let’s get the fuck out of there!”

-I think that bars need to differentiate a little bit better between the male and female bathrooms.  Quit trying to be so damn fancy.  I walk over to the bathrooms at this bar the other night and look at the illustrations on the two doors.  One is like a cat with a top hat on and the other is a turtle in a tuxedo.  Which one is fucking male?  I chose poorly.

-Like most people my age, the complete fulfillment of all my wildest desires and fantasies is held back by one thing.  Money.  Our economy has evolved infinitely since the days of the subsistence farmers who made just enough to survive.  Yet how come I don’t save one dollar I earn?  All my money goes to rent, food, booze, and IKEA.  It’s like a zero-sum game.  Maybe its because my saving is so erratic.  Like how come I regularly use my expired college ID to get a dollar off my meal at Subway, but refuse to get a CVS extra-value card?  I also think my wallet is bulimic.  I binge all week, saving up and not spending much, and then on the weekend I purge, throwing away fistfuls of cash at a time in exchange for tons of watered down drinks and imported beer.  By the end of the weekend I’m broke and cleaning up my own puke.

-As always, here are random some things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Last weekend I bought a case of beer and polished it off with some friends.  I was about to throw the empty box down the trash chute when, at the very bottom of the box, I spotted a little card that was my entry for a big sweepstakes the beer company was having.  It said “no purchase necessary.”  Now how the fuck am I supposed to know that without buying and drinking all that beer?

-Have you noticed that in all the stores now you swipe your own credit or debit card?  What genius came up with this idea?  Whatever time it is supposed to save by freeing up the cashier to do other things is more than lost when I bumble about trying to read the hieroglyphics on the machine that tells me which way to swipe my card.

-Blockbuster now let’s you keep a movie for a full seven days.  I hope you all realize it’s a scam.  When was the last time you didn’t watch a rented movie within 24 hours of picking it up?  Never!  The seven-day promotion doesn’t give you more time to watch the movie, it gives you more time to put off returning it, increasing the chances you are going to forget about it, and thereby driving up Blockbuster’s late fees.  You can’t fool me!

-Next time I see one of my friends use his middle initial on a business card or email signature, I’m gonna kick his ass.  What are you, forty years old?

-Why do people slow down when they see a cop on the side of the road giving someone else a ticket?  I don’t think the cop is gonna jump back in his car to chase you down you idiot!

-Did I miss the poof revolution?  Since when did it become mandatory for all girls to use one of those poofy things in the shower?  I was crashing at a girl friend’s place and all she had was a poof and liquid soap.  Guys were just not meant to use a poof in the shower.  It’s too rough in places it should be gentle and too gentle when it should be rough.  I feel uncomfortable just writing about it.

-Doesn’t it seem like there’s more scaffolding than sky in New York these days?

-Pop quiz: How many construction workers does it take to repair an important roadway? Answer?  Twenty-five.  One to operate the crane, one to get coffee, and twenty-three to stand around watching.

-You’re telling me they can’t make a battery that lasts more than three hours before dying?  I took a band-aid off literally two weeks ago, and that sticky stuff is still on my ankle.  I can’t get it off.  I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed.  I even used a poof!  It lasts forever!  The scientists who invented that shit should start working on batteries, contact lenses, and condoms right away.

-People have to calm down.  When you’re in a crowded subway and you pull in to a stop, don’t people start to freak out and push to get out of the doors in time?  Have you ever actually seen someone not make it out?  No.  Same with elevators.  Ever see someone get into an elevator and then realize it’s going up but they wanted to go down?  They have a fucking panic attack.  Chill out dude, I don’t think the elevator is going very far.

-Why must people ask me what part of the book I’m up to when they see me reading?  “Hey, are you up to the part where they find out that the doctor is really a spy?”  Well I am now, asshole!

-So I just got back from Los Angeles where I was meeting with a bunch of Hollywood types about some television projects I’m working on.  It went really well and I’ll keep you all updated.  I’d actually never been to LA before so as you can imagine I have plenty of ruminating to do about it.  But I’ve decided to save that for another issue.  Just one quick thing, though.  Some people in LA say that shit is “gnarly.”  Gnarly?  What the fuck is that?  Does that mean good or bad?  You sound like a fucking Ninja Turtle.

-Every time I meet someone from New Jersey I ask them what town they are from.  And every time they tell me I just stare at them blankly.  You know why?  Because I don’t know any fucking towns in New Jersey!  I guess the same thing happens to me when I tell people I am from Long Island.  People ask me what town in Long Island, I tell them Plainview, they stare at me blankly, and then say, “Oh, is that near such and such?”  And I say, “Yeah, sure, it’s 15-20 minutes away.”  But here’s a little secret I’ll let you in on – everything is 15-20 minutes away on Long Island!

-Ever realize that when the light turns red and you are still in the middle of the street and you do that little hybrid jog/skip/walk where you flail your arms about like an idiot, you are actually moving at the same speed as if you just plain walked instead?

-A bunch of my friends have been skydiving.  They make me watch their videos.  They’re always the exact same thing.  My friend getting harnessed up and looking all nervous.  My friend still looking really nervous but giving the thumbs up sign as he is about to jump out.  My friend flying through the air with his cheeks flapping, giving the thumbs up sign again.  For three minutes straight.  To the Top Gun soundtrack.  Boring!

-I get the feeling that deep down, no matter how close they say they are, all girls secretly hate each other.  Some girls reading this right now are like, no way, I love my best friend!  Oh yeah, but what happened to your best friend before her?

-I love my mom.  She is a caring, nurturing woman.  She rarely gets upset.  But God forbid I call her during The West Wing.  My God!  She acts like I just killed her first-born.  And I’m her first-born!

-Some of my friends from college were what you might term “slackers.”  They did no work for four years.  I was having a drink with some of them the other night and I asked one of them if he wished he had studied harder at Penn.  His answer was a vehement “No.”  He said, “Karo, what would doing more work have done for me?  Maybe I would have learned more hard facts, but I wouldn’t have learned more about applicating those facts, which is really more important.”  I replied, “Dude, applicating isn’t even a fucking word.”

-Sometimes people ask me for my cell phone number.  So I give them my cell phone number.  Then they call my cell phone and say, “Hey, is Karo there?”  Who the fuck do you think answers this phone, my secretary?

-The other day I tried to call a friend’s cell phone.  A recording told me that all circuits were busy.  ALL circuits?  You’re telling me that ALL circuits are busy?  Every single, last circuit?  You know how many circuits there are?  That seems a little fishy to me.

-I was watching the news and there was a story about a convicted felon whose sentence was reduced from five years to two years because of good behavior.  What the fuck is good behavior in prison?  Not killing anyone else?

-You know what really ruins a meal for me?  Unforeseen pits.  I’ll be chomping merrily away at my salad and come to one of my favorites: an olive.  I’ll start to chew, and then I realize it has pits.  Why would anyone ever put an olive with a pit in it in a salad?  It becomes a whole production.  I’m moving all the food over to one side of my mouth so I can chew the olive with the other side.  I’m trying to casually spit the pit into a napkin.  I’ll tell you this, pits can’t be spat out naturally.  It’s a veritable debacle.

-And, finally, I think that fast food restaurants are out to get me.  Have you noticed that they don’t put napkins out anymore?  Is this some sort of cost-cutting measure?  And they give you like one single-ply napkin for the messiest meal ever.  So they make you go back to the counter to beg like a fucking orphan.  “Excuse me, sir, could I get another napkin please?”  And how about this.  The other day I ordered at Subway (using my college ID for a nifty discount of course).  The guy asked me if I wanted it to stay or to go.  I said to stay.  Then he asked me if I wanted a small, medium, or large drink.  I said large.  Then I went to the fountain to fill up and I noticed a sign that said “Free Refills.”  I’d been robbed!  If I knew there were free refills, I obviously would have gotten a small cup.  Fuck me!

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