Pete Thunell
pit@newsroom.byu.edu
A quarter century. In a couple days I turn 25, which makes me officially old.
In fact, at the risk of completely freaking out a quarter of my audience, when I was on my mission, the women who are freshman right now, were the Beehives sending me those letters of encouragement where they all sign their names and write, 'Keep up the good work, Elder!'
If I would have had a little foresight at the time, I might have written them all back.
The fact is that as I approach 25 as a single guy, I'm beginning to realize that maybe my approach to relationships isn't all that effective.
You see, most guys have what I call, the 'Blitzkrieg' approach, in which they swoop in, meet the women fast and are on their way. This is why you have the two-weeks-until-they're-engaged engagements. Some of these couples learn things at the wedding, like their new spouse's middle name or how her mother used to be a Manson follower.
Me, I'm more of what I call a 'Masada' kind of guy. I build a siege wall (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively) around someone and wait until they get desperate and run out of water or something.
Now that I'm getting old, I want to give everyone a little help in discerning the signs of impending aging.
The first step (and most popular) is denial. Denial causes mid-twenties Provo guys to do strange things.
I, for one, entertained ideas of doing something drastic like bleaching my hair to make me feel young, but I had to come to terms with the fact that when a balding guy, like myself, bleaches his hair, it's a lot like when you see 35-year-old women wearing miniskirts at the grocery store.
In either case, you just want to walk up to the offender, put your arm around them and say sympathetically (but with a touch of tough love), 'Let it go.' My other option was to get one of those barbed-wire tattoos around my arm, but when your arm looks like a mop handle with a farmer's tan, why are you going to bring attention to it? Especially if it's something that would get me kicked out of school anyway.
The next step in aging is a condescending smugness to the general population.
Was it me, or weren't all the delegates at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions just like the 13-year-old girls who wait outside during MTV's Total Request Live? The delegates would cast their 'vote' saying things like, 'I'm Jimmy from Austin, and I want to give my honky-tonkiest, rip-roaringin'est Texas-sized vote to the next chief cow hand, Mr. Bush!' They then would scream and whoo-hoo a lot, just like TRL.
Of course maybe I just watch too much TV. (Feel free to smile smugly here.)
The next stage is general senility. If you don't believe that it's hitting me, you should see the clerks' faces at All-a-Dollar when I ask them how much something costs.
The senility is even affecting me at work. For a while, I kept getting Falun Gong and Feng Shui mixed up and thought that the Chinese government was throwing people in jail for rearranging their furniture.
It is true, though, that I've been suffering from selective senility for quite some time. How else can I explain why I go out on a date and drop 40 bucks without blinking, yet the next day I'll take three hours to drive around town seeing who has the cheapest Pasta Ronis and Golden Grahams. Sometimes I'll even drive on empty for miles just because I know that the gas station coming up is two cents cheaper.
The next big aging phase is fear. For some, it's a fear of technology. I for one, have to question why my computer mysteriously always seems to know just when to drop the queen of spades on me when I'm playing Hearts. Also, how else do I explain the fact that I always hit every red light on Center Street on my way to I-15?
Another recurring fear I, for one, have is that I'll be launched back in time and will be completely worthless to whatever civilization I end up at. I mean really, I've seen a toaster, but could I make one from scratch? How about bread or anything else for that matter? I could maybe eke out a wheel or fire to impress the Neanderthals, but that's about it.
The biggest fear facing me, though, is the fear of my vocational future. I've been studying both journalism and public relations these days and lately I feel pulled in more directions than a Stretch Armstrong in a polygamist family nursery.
On one hand, there's journalism. Now journalism is an interesting thing mainly because being a journalist, referee or a mass murderer are the only jobs on Earth where the more people dislike you, the better you think you're doing your job.
Also, journalists are constantly hoping that someone will mess up. Anyone. They don't care. They don't even mind when their fellow journalists mess up. It's like being a cannibal at a cannibal dinner party. Enjoy yourself, but watch your back.
Still, I have an abiding love for the journalistic discipline and spend so much time at 'The Daily Universe' that I've broken my essential food groups down to fit with the stuff offered in the newsroom vending machine (the basic cookies, chips, candy bar, soda and gum groups to be exact). I also count riding the Wilk. elevator from the first floor to the fifth without stopping, to be my biggest accomplishment of the day.
Now on the other hand, there's public relations, which is basically the job taken when journalists realize that they will someday have a family to feed.
For the last few years, people I know have told me, 'Yeah, I can totally see you doing p.r.' This generally concerns me because I know that most people believe p.r. mainly is being able to lie while maintaining a smile on your face that tells people not to worry about the accidental poisoning of the town water supply.
Of course this isn't what p.r. really is. Spin doctoring (a term for those who have embraced the dark side) maybe.
Still, I can't help but wonder what these people I know think of me.
Well, I hope that I may have helped a few of you out there.
Before I finish though, I'd like to end all of this with a note of hope.
A few days ago I noticed a hair growing a good inch in front of my receding hairline. I have since named the hair 'Magellan -- the explorer.' I figure Magellan may find my upper forehead to be fertile ground and maybe induce other hairs to return and settle there. I might have to resort to forced relocation (a.k.a. the weave) if the hairs don't come themselves, but when you're my age, hope springs eternal.