After my last post, commenter Nathaniel mentioned that sleeping in hostels was definitely on his Murtaugh List. In case you’re not familiar with it and you don’t know how to use Google, the Murtaugh List comes from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Ted, the main character, catalogs all the things he’s passed the age for. (Murtaugh is an allusion to Danny Glover’s character in the Lethal Weapon series, whose tagline is “I’m too old for this shit”.)
It got me thinking what was on my list. There are only a few areas where Ted’s and my lists overlap. I won’t pull an all-nighter, I won’t eat a whole pizza in one sitting, and I won’t use a beer bong. But not because I don’t want to—only because those things would wreck me physically and/or spiritually.
He wouldn’t, but I would totally still go to a rave, though it would be for people-watching/blog-fodder purposes only.
Speaking of raves, let’s get into my list:
- Ecstasy. Always wanted to roll. Never did. Window closed. Don’t care.
- Piercings anywhere other than my ears. And maybe my nose. Am I too old for a nose ring?
- Climbing, as a friend said, any mountain that requires crampons.
- Finishing books I’m not interested in. I trudged through 350 pages of White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Took me about two months. Finally said fuck it and picked up Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. Done in 6 days. To crib a phrase from my college friend Dan, I know I should eat my literary vegetables, but I think I’ll require of myself what my sister does of her kids: a no-thank-you bite. Let’s call it fifty pages.
- Excessive primping/ladyscaping before a date*. I might put on some lip gloss. If the hedges are trimmed because I’ve been to the pool recently, well, lucky for you; I’m just not going out of my way.
- Related: thong underwear outside of the bedroom. If it’s coming off within 15 minutes, fine, but I’ll no longer tolerate recreational chafing.
*That’s assuming I’ll ever go on another date. At this juncture, it’s looking like no.
Now you go. What’s on your Murtaugh List?
You ARE too old for a nose ring. Just like I’m too old for a tatoo…
What is the appeal of the nose ring? I feel like it is the worst, most distracting, most annoying piercing you could possibly get.
Seriously, you think a nose ring is more distracting than a lip ring? Or an eyebrow ring?
And clearly the worst piercing is any in the genital region.
I feel like a nose ring would make me cross eyed. There would be this shiny thing on the tip of my nose that would constantly be drawing my eye. Whereas, an eyebrow ring or lip ring is at least out of my sight line. I had a friend with a lip ring who swore that she never even noticed it was there.
A genital piercing is supposed to be functional, right? Not my thing either, but I assume the people who get them do it for the fetish.
Ah, distracting to the pierced! I thought you meant distracting to others.
And, to be fair, genital piercing would obviously be way more distracting to other people. I can’t even imagine how I would react if I went home with a girl and discovered she was vajazzled. It would definitely throw me off balance.
Vajazzled is my new favorite word.
I was just going to say skinny jeans, but after reading this thread, I feel like I should come up with something more interesting.
Also, I need to check the fine print on our agreement, but I think I am contractually obligated to holiday sweater your nose ring idea.
Like.
Not even in the same GAME as holiday sweaters.
I admit that the original intent of the framers of the Holiday Sweater Compact was to prevent one (okay, usually me) from wearing something that would make one look old before one’s time. But I believe that the Holiday Sweater Compact is not a static document to be defined only by issues that were present at the framing in 2002(-ish). Instead, it is a living document to be interpreted more broadly in accordance with its intent (a loving and only sometimes mocking intervention to prevent one from wearing or doing something one would later find embarrassing and regrettable if confronted with photographic evidence). The HSC has been applied in the past to Crocs for adults and the word “loo-gahj,” much clearer cases, I admit. But I would say the same if Bruce were thinking about buying a yellow Trans Am, and I argue it clearly applies to getting a new nose ring in one’s mid-30s.
Speaking of HIMYM, I just got lawyered.
Hahahahaha.
I’d still rave/do ecstasy, but it would have to be in the comfort of my own home after the kids are in bed. Same thing with beer bongs.
Actually, it probably would be less “raving” and more “watching tv while on ecstasy.”
Hahahahaha.
The Problem with a “Murtaugh” list is that you are typically in the midst of it happening when you then state, “I’m too old for this shit”. In other words, I say this about once a month after I’m hanging out with younger friends (I’m looking right at Paul Piracci) and then realize that I am indeed, too old for this shit.
For me, I can never see it coming, and the worst part, I forget and do it again. Like beer pong, every time I say it, but then I play again.