The Age of Adulthood

Apparently 15 is the official age of becoming a full grown up adult.  I say this because the top story on AOL news was extolling that Bindi Irwin (daughter of hero/idiot Steve Irwin) had flourished into grownuphood (that’s a word I swear.  I looked it up in a book of words.  Yes, yes that’s the ticket said in the voice of Jon Lovitz.  Acting!) at the age of 15.  A little premature much I caught myself saying before I took a minute to ponder this incredibly detailed article.  I looked out the window and gazed at the apartment complex across from me where a couple was having a mini argument.  They soon went inside and I was stripped of my entertainment, so I decided to go back to the 15 year old thing.  Is attaining 15 years of life the age in which one becomes an adult in the civilized world?  I thought about this query for a few more minutes until I figured that thinking this much about 15 year old women would probably trigger some kind of government warning and then I, like Tobias and Maeby Funke before me, would have to live in Sudden Valley.  I did not want to incur that fate.  So I made a hasty decision and figured that, yes, 15 is a ripe old age for full maturity and adulthood.

Just remember where you were when you reached the age of 15, or should I say maturity.  I remember it like it was 7 years ago.  I knew I had reached adulthood because I was about to do a very adult thing: start my sophomore year in high school.  Yes, nothing says grown up like attending your second year of high school as a student rather than as an undercover cop or an undercover reporter.  At 15, I had my full grown up features such as a height of 5’5 and a voice that cracked every 4 minutes.  Nothing says being a grown up or “adult”, as we called it back in the day, like the 10 weird strands of hair over my upper lip (otherwise known as a pedo-stashe).  Man, I recall that glorious feeling at 15 when I realized I was all grown-up.  It came after my 9:30 bedtime while I was laying on my Ultimate Spiderman sheets staring up at my Lego Star Wars Cloud City Action Set (complete with the ability to turn Han Solo into Carbonite).  This is how it is to be grown up I thought to myself.  One does not achieve grownup-ness through a silly bar mitzvah service, or receiving a draft notice at 18, or achieving the first of many tax audits at age 25.  You become a fully matured adult when you hit 15, the exact center of male puberty.  AOL news was right again (why would AOL news lie?  What would they have to gain through a click bait headline article?).  The arbitrary age of 15 is when you hit adulthood because.  Just because.  Don’t ask any more questions, and if I may pull a Helen Sinclair, don’t speak.  Just accept it and accept it with pride.  Plus, who are you doubt AOL news?  They were number one in online news in 1998; it said so on the free packs they used to give out.  And that claim is good enough for me to keep up with their intrepid reporting and profound insights on whether former quasi child stars are officially “grown up”.  Good day sir, I said good day.