“I have four clean towels in the closet at all times: I’m a grown-up,” said the girl at the next table. “I’ve got a hair-dryer too, and an iron and an ironing board."
“I can’t believe it!” said her friend.
“It’ll happen to you one day too,” said the first girl. “I didn’t see it coming. The other day, I looked around, and there it all ways, the towels, the iron, and I thought, my god, it’s happened, I’ve grown up.”
I could put up with no more of this. I turned around in my chair. “Listen,” I said, “what you’re talking about—that’s not being grown up, that’s being bourgeois. If you want to be bourgeois, that’s fine, that’s great, but don’t confuse it with adulthood.”
They looked at me, offended, naturally. “Some people never grow up,” murmured the second girl.
“You’re right!” I said. “In fact, hardly anyone does, no matter how many accouterments they manage to stock their closets with.”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” said the one with the four towels. “No one was talking to you.”
“Oh, I suppose it was a private chat? At high volume, on a self-congratulatory topic, in a crowded café garden? I suppose you had no intention that the world should hear of your graduation into adulthood, you mealy-mouthed little bragger!” I cried striking the table, and overturning my coffee mug, which poured its contents neatly into my lap, as though there were some natural waterway leading in that direction.
I leaped up as the two girls retreated, pale but giggling, into the shadowy interior of the café.
* * *
The preceding is of course highly fictionalized. I did in fact overhear a conversation more or less like the one described between two girls in a café a couple years ago, but I had the— was it good sense? cowardice? apathy?— not to intervene. I present this work of partial fiction here by way of introducing a theme I would like to devote some time to.
More on adulthood>>
“I can’t believe it!” said her friend.
“It’ll happen to you one day too,” said the first girl. “I didn’t see it coming. The other day, I looked around, and there it all ways, the towels, the iron, and I thought, my god, it’s happened, I’ve grown up.”
I could put up with no more of this. I turned around in my chair. “Listen,” I said, “what you’re talking about—that’s not being grown up, that’s being bourgeois. If you want to be bourgeois, that’s fine, that’s great, but don’t confuse it with adulthood.”
They looked at me, offended, naturally. “Some people never grow up,” murmured the second girl.
“You’re right!” I said. “In fact, hardly anyone does, no matter how many accouterments they manage to stock their closets with.”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” said the one with the four towels. “No one was talking to you.”
“Oh, I suppose it was a private chat? At high volume, on a self-congratulatory topic, in a crowded café garden? I suppose you had no intention that the world should hear of your graduation into adulthood, you mealy-mouthed little bragger!” I cried striking the table, and overturning my coffee mug, which poured its contents neatly into my lap, as though there were some natural waterway leading in that direction.
I leaped up as the two girls retreated, pale but giggling, into the shadowy interior of the café.
* * *
The preceding is of course highly fictionalized. I did in fact overhear a conversation more or less like the one described between two girls in a café a couple years ago, but I had the— was it good sense? cowardice? apathy?— not to intervene. I present this work of partial fiction here by way of introducing a theme I would like to devote some time to.
More on adulthood>>
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