Getting aged on the sideline

I woke up in Marshall's today. The store, not the bar...though it would make more sense if I woke up in a bar because who wakes up in a department store?

I found myself feeling, or at least recognizing what the feeling was, when I was in college in Chocolate City only this time I was doing the whole reflecting thing. Generally, I think I might be getting aged. Not old, but aged.

It was a strange feeling walking in and around Marshalls. I'm heading down to beautiful Columbia, SC next week for anywhere from a week to over a month. It's going to pretty awesome and by awesome I mean not awesome. Anyway, so I need to get some "business casual" clothes, which I don't own. I own business professional clothes, like clothes you wear with suits, only I don't wear the jacket. So when I get told I can dress business casual, I first think what that is and realize I don't own any business casual clothes...which makes me feel aged.

My first office mate told me all he owned were jeans and work clothes. I remember saying I would never pull that off, but today I said the same thing to a co-worker that my first office mate said to me. So I'm in Marshall's because I need to get some less dress like clothes for Columbia and I don't want to spend all that much money on a few shirts and pairs of pants. It reminded me of my first few months at work when I needed clothes but didn't have the money to get the nice stuff on my own and Christmas was too far away to wait for Santa to drop new stuff on me. So to Marshalls I would go. Three and a half years. Aged.

So I'm walking through Marshalls and I'm not even all that interested in anything. It took me a few minutes to ever get comfortable in the store. I started to feel like I was supposed to be past Marshalls when I realized what it's like be someone in my position...27 years old, with a paying job, no kids, no wife (yet) and no debt. Then I started to feel like an asshole for thinking I should be past this stage. I looked around and saw a lot of people in different stages of their lives. Teenagers, mothers, immigrants and just people who were like me. I started having one of those flash forwards where this was going to be more like the near future than the not so distant past. Aged.

I even felt more aged because the shit that would have pissed me off going on in the store or the frustrations that would have got the best of me I was laughing at or knowing exactly how to play off. I was even to maneuver all necessary employees in whatever way I needed without causing anyone any agitation or conflict. I watched as other suffered through issues I once experienced. I then sent a message to a friend of mine that I might have outgrown myself. After all, I woke up today and started thinking about what one of my co workers should be doing instead of what we currently do. I thought that was pretty smart of me and all since I'm still 26 yardsale on the fuck I'm doing. Makes no sense to me either.

Basically, what I have going is that transition is in the near future, like less than 30 days, and I nostalgic feelings ride with that. However, I feel like I'm too young to be dealing with that. It's to the point where I'm looking forward to watching "Quarterlife" on NBC starting this Tuesday at 10 pm. They don't pay me to advertise for them but here I go doing it again. First Prison Break, now quarterlife?

OK, I guess I owe you a little bit of the bachelor party after this one: I made previous mention to testube shots that were mostly sugar. What you don't know is that there are about 20 shots on each tray. What is also unknown and was unknown to me until later, is that the tray costs approximately $200. What you ought to know is that in less than 5 minutes, I was force fed roughly 20 testube shots...two at a time. Most of this was thanks to my friend in the background yelling at the shot girl, "ONE MORE!! ONE MORE!!" I would try to walk away casually, only to be spun around by shot girl as she would force deuce more down.

I woke up the next day with basically no memory of this night. What I remembered, thanks to my video camera, was that before we went I was already torn up and was hiding in an armoire. That video is slightly hilarious. Enjoy:

WAIT. Are those Starbury's prominently featured in seconds 6-11?!?!?!?!? Available now at Steve and Barry's.