No. 0048 - Wild Card Birthday

I am going to be 29 soon. And it feels a lot like someone is holding my feet to the fire. Every year that goes by, someone is pulling me incrementally closer to the fire and by the time I hit 30, that's when I go up in flames. I think that is a pretty accurate description of how I feel about my age. Since I've moved to Massachusetts, I've been looking out for a soccer league to join. They have leagues for all ages but one thing that bothers me is that they called the 30 and plus years old team "Over-the-hill league". I didn't realize I was so close to the top of the hill?! How come no one warned me about this hill?! I didn't realized I was even climbing this hill?! I thought I was still in the FOOT-hills!

I'm sure a lot of you out there are dreading to have that "3" sneak up into the tens unit of you age. The 20's were great, weren't they? You're out of the house on your own so you can have ice cream for dinner and stay out 'till 3 in the morning. You can be a couch potato or sit in front of your computer for days, but still be able to get on your feet and play some hardcore ultimate Frisbee for hours and hours without complaining "my knees are hurting". If I can choose to be 20's forever, I would. Even if I can stay in the 20's for just one more year, I would do it. That's is why my invention this month is called the Wild Card Birthday.

Here is how it works. Everybody get issued a wild card that they can keep. During any part of their life, that person may use it to legally keep the same age for another year. That simple. So if I have such a wild card, I would use it during my next birthday and give myself a second 28th birthday party (all are invited). I mean seriously, who really cares about age anyway; it's all relative. Did you feel any different when you turned 24? Not really (at least not for me). Legally you didn't really gain anything unlike 21. But will I feel something when I cross over to the 30's? Heck yes I will because I would be branded as over-the-hill according to the MPS (Mass Premier Soccer). Considering average lifespan in the US is in the hi 70's and low 80's, what is it going to hurt if we can just roll back our age by one year? That's only roughly 1.25% of our entire lifespan.