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I seem like a pretty normal person. I go to school. I eat. I sleep. I club baby seals. I come from a relatively normal household in a relatively normal neighborhood. I blend easily into the crowd. I’m a fairly respectable person. I’ve only killed one person. I’ve never been arrested. I don’t have a drinking problem. I’m not a rebellious child…

But I have a confession to make: I eat salad with my fingers because forks are for hoity-toity people. Oh, and I am a drug addict. That’s right. I am addicted. AND I eat salad with my fingers. I am physically dependent on drugs. Can’t live with’em. Can’t live without’em.

Lately, I have begun to realize that I am approaching a horrible time, worse than when it’s time to write that paper due in two hours. I mean when you are finally expected to be able to conduct yourself in a mature and respectable manner. And at the same time, I have also realized that I am as ill-prepared as possible for this. If maturity were a class, I’ve skipped class all semester and am preparing to walk in to the final exam.

Potentially, you have felt this same anxiousness that I have. Or you may not be certain. If you do not know if you are ready to enter the realm of respectability, there are some questions/situations you can use to help determine your standing.

1) Restaurant Behavior

          A) Menu Mishap You have just entered the restaurant, and there’s no dirty back-lit menu to guide you. Quick, what do you think first? If you’re like me, the first thing you consider is not the décor or the ambience (whatever that is). No, the first thing you wonder is if you can get away with ordering chicken fingers and fries. Or, in one of your nicer restaurants, chicken “strips”. Having already had this thought, you have failed like Ron Zook against Mississippi State. A mature person would take care to order something expensive and/or difficult to pronounce. You will be discovered as a fraud, and ridiculed like the non-Ivy League pauper you are for the rest of the evening. Bôn apetít.