Adulting as defined by my father is when a grown-up completes rudimentary tasks, which a responsible adult would be expected to accomplish, in order to just get by. The term adulting was introduced when two of my father’s friends, Sam and Pete, came over to hangout and lampoon my father for no longer being any fun. In conversation, Sam stated he had a busy morning adulting. He went to brunch, did laundry and then paid a few bills, which was capped off with a nap because in his words, “Adulting was hard work.” You could see my father contemplating a firm response as he had done more than all the adulting activities Sam listed in the first hour after he woke up at 5 AM on a Saturday. “Sam, going to brunch is not an adulting activity”, my father stated. His response was not in the direction I thought he was going to steer the conversation. I thought he was going to tout his accomplishments of the day and highlight that adulting is not a real thing; rather it is just called life.
Sam offered a differing opinion, “Brunch is an adulting activity as it requires me to actually talk to people rather than text with emojis.” From my standpoint Sam had soundly won that debate. However, my father showed his contempt with Sam’s response by hanging his head in disbelief. Sam recognized the skepticism and offered a proposal to demonstrate he should be viewed as a true adult. Sam proffered, “I will take care of “the kid” for a day to prove I have mastered adulting.”
Sam’s offering seemed intriguing to my father as he did not provide an immediate hard no. My father responded, “My counterproposal is that you and Pete watch “the kid” for a day at my house; you don’t leave my house and there will be further defined conditions. Do we have a deal?” I responded for Sam, “Yes, we have deal, as having Sam and Pete over was going to be awesome.” Sam and Pete also agreed.
The next Saturday Sam and Pete arrived about fifteen minutes late citing, “It was a late night.” Sam and Pete’s tardiness was not a shocker for my father who had forecasted they would be an hour late. My father ran through about 50 scenarios with the guys before he and my mom left for the day with my brother. “I will leave my car here and keys on the counter in case of an emergency; and only in the case of an emergency since we agreed to the rule that you stay at the house,” my father stated. Pete cut in, “Don’t patronize us, we got this, please go.” That morning was awesome as predicted; we had a pillow fight, jumped on beds, and made an ad-hoc slip-‘n-slide.
By the afternoon it appeared that Sam and Pete had cabin fever after being bound to the house all morning. I overhead them discussing a plan to get out of the house, “Let’s just take “the kid” out for ice cream and maybe to a park. There could be a lot of ladies that find “the kid” cute.” Pete shared the plan with me, “We are going out for ice cream and maybe the park.” I responded, “Dad said we should only leave the house in the event of an emergency.” Sam cut in, “Getting ice cream on a hot day is an emergency.” I could not argue with that logic; I was sold on the idea and agreed to go with the guys.
After eating ice cream we made our way to a park. I made fast friends with a girl that was playing on the playground. Sam told Pete, “Watch the kid.” Then Sam immediately gravitated to the girl’s mom who was sitting on the park bench. I do not know what was discussed, but they seemed to be enjoying each other’s company as they were laughing. Pete seemed to interrupt a good thing between the two when he said, “We need to get, “the kid” home.” I later learned in the car ride home that Sam tried to “get her digits” but was “denied”.
Sam and Pete asked if I had fun to which I replied, “Absolutely today was amazing.” Sam followed-up, “We are glad you had fun, but we need to keep this afternoon a secret so your dad doesn’t get upset about leaving the house. If we don’t keep it a secret we won’t be able to do this again.” I understood the magnitude of keeping our afternoon a secret so I committed to keeping it. When we arrived home I begged to watch TV. Sam and Pete were dumbstruck as to why I needed to even ask; they went as far as to show me how to login to Netflix on my own.
My father and mother arrived home in the late afternoon. Sam and Pete questioned the necessity of all the proof of life photo requests my father had sent via text throughout the day. Frankly, I was impressed that they had the forethought to take a few extra photos before we left the house to send when we were not home. But then again that took the collective brainpower of two college educated guys to produce. Their collective brainpower, or lack thereof, failed to conduct an once-over when we returned to see if there was anything that would trigger my father to ask questions about what we did. Sure enough, I had an ice cream spot on my shirt that my father immediately identified and began asking questions as we didn’t currently have ice cream in the house.
“Let’s not rush to judgment,” Sam stated. “Someone begin telling me what you guys did today outside of this house,” my father demanded. Sam and Pete seemed taken back by my father’s stern tone and remained silent. I on the other hand hear that roar on a near daily basis so I offered my version of the events. “It is hot out, so it was an emergency to get ice cream. We went to the ice cream hut then went to the park.” Sam and Pete just glared at me for snitching. Sam sarcastically said, “Way to hold on to that secret tight kid.” “You are just bitter because you didn’t get that mom’s number,” I retorted.
“Sam, give me some context to make this all sound less bad than you deliberately disobeying my directions and then trying to use my child as a pawn to pick up women,” my father vocalized. Sam stated, “When framed in that manner it does not sound great, but I can assure you everything was above board.” “Stop being purposely coy,” my father chirped back. “Everything “the kid” said is more or less on the mark, except the part about me being bitter about not getting the mom’s number. Given more time I would have had a different result,” Sam shared. “Thanks for filling-in me in about the hypothetical outcome of your conversation with the mom as I was generally concerned that you had lost a step,” my father mockingly rebutted.
“Gentlemen, I believe you have done enough adulting for today,” my father said as he ushered Sam and Pete to the door. My father recommended that for the near-term they should stick to brunching for their adulting activity as they collectively worked to fix the “trust issues” created by the disobedience, mismanagement, and lack of application of common sense. Frankly, I was bummed. I was a big fan of the adulting time I had with Sam and Pete. I gave the guys a hug and said, “I hope there are no hard feelings.” To which they said, “No way, we had a great time with a great kid.” I promised I would put in a good word with my father to patch things up with the “trust issues” so we could do some more adulting soon. When I closed the door I told my father, “Don’t be too hard on them. Adulting is hard.” My father smiled and said, “Yes it is. Probably the second hardest job in the world right after to being a parent.”