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.

          B) The Fork Dilemma
Perhaps this is ground that has already been covered, but it still never ceases to puzzle many a moron. The “salad” fork. Although all forks are the created equal (sporks are a different species), if you place one on the outside and the other on the inside, one automatically morphs into a classy, all-powerful “salad” fork. How this came to be is not known, though it has become popular to blame Herbert Hoover, since basically everything that goes wrong is his fault. But anyway. As you sit down and the salads are presented, either try to mimic the person next to you, or deftly scrape it under the table and hope nobody notices.

2) Matters of Clothing

          A) Socks You are getting dressed. Whether it be for a social function, church, or whatever, socks are for some strange reason (commonly referred to as “retarded”) considered to be an indicator of dress appropriateness. What is the first thought that comes into your head when it’s time to get dressed? If it isn’t “I wonder if I can get away with wearing white socks”, you’re reasonably okay, unless it involves your buttless pants. If it is, you have a problem. A civilized (obviously a subjective term) person would know that white socks are generally frowned upon. But not you. As a hater of any clothes involving a collar or cleanliness, your immature self is looking for any loophole in which you may be able to dress down. The only way to avoid black socks without the associated faux pas would be to spray paint your white socks black, in which case, you’re a dedicated idiot and will be loved and jeered at the same time.

          B) Clothing Cleanliness As I sit here typing this article, resting over the back of my chair is a pair of jeans. This is no ordinary pair of jeans, oh no. These are “specially broken-in” jeans. By my count, I have worn them for eight days straight. Now, someone with taste and maturity would know that even pants should be washed after a maximum of two wears. However, as the maturity heathen I am (and you probably are too, you heathen, you), I recognize that while shirts may have a maximum of two wears, pants (jeans especially) have an infinite amount of times you may wear them without washing. To some, this practice is known as “disgusting,” but others simply call it “delaying laundry day”, a time-honored tradition of the hopelessly immature and/or quarter-deprived.

On a mildly related note, I recently read a humor article that stated, “You know you’re a college student if when you do your laundry depends on when you run out of underwear. This is so true. I raise a 64-oz bottle of Gatorade to that, man (cups are just inconvenient).