Sometimes Adults Should Order Off The Children's Menu

What's not cool about it? Being thin?

One time, I had a crush on this chick, and we didn’t know each other very well, but we knew each other a little just through other people, and I heard that she broke up with her boyfriend, so when I ran into her at a party a few weeks later, I asked her out. She smiled and said yes, and I smiled and said “Great,” and she smiled and said “Cool,” and I smiled and said, “Just to give you a heads up, it’s going to be a stupid date.”

“Ha, yeah, dating is so weird.”

“No, I mean, yes, but that’s not what I meant. I am going to take you on a date where we do dumb shit.”

She took this as a reference to us hopping in the sack together instantly and made this sort of “very presumptuous of you” face.

“No, I mean, hopefully, but what I meant is we’re going to go do childish, stupid stuff that serious adults are too proud to do.”

She lit up. “Oh, that sounds fun! What?”

“We’re going to go bowling.”

She laughed. “Yeah, bowling is stupid, but OK.”

“No, I haven’t mentioned the stupid part yet. We’re going to go bowling and…”

“…and?”

“We’re going to play with bumpers.”

“Bumpers?”

“Yeah, so you can’t get a gutter ball.”

“Uhm… those are for little children.”

“I know. I told you.”

“I don’t want to play with bumpers.”

“Have you ever played with bumpers?”

“Not as an adult.”

“Right, adults never do.”

“Have you?”

“I haven’t, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

She was now looking at me like I was a psychopath.

“I can see that I’m losing you, but you don’t understand. It makes it better.”

“I don’t think it does.”

“Why? Because the teens at the bowling alley will judge us?”

“I will judge us.”

“You need to live without fear.”

“It sounds like you are afraid to get a gutter ball.”

“No, I have nothing to prove to the bowling alley.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The bowling alley asks us to accept its rules. But we are young, free, and alive in the West. We can make our own rules.”

“I think the normal rules are good.”

“I thought you said bowling was dumb.”

“I meant it’s a dumb date.”

“Bumpers will add a whole other element of strategy. You can intentionally try to bounce the ball off the bumper so that it bumps back in just the right spot.”

“You want me to aim for the bumpers?”

“Yes. I mean, you don’t have to, but I think when you see me do it, you will recognize the fun and stop confining yourself to the traditional strategy.”

“People are going to laugh at us.”

“They’re teenagers. Who cares what they think?”

“What about the adults?”

“I don’t know that there are going to be any adults at the bowling alley, but if they are, they’re weirdos who are in bowling clubs and take the whole thing so seriously that we’ll be laughing at them and their life choices.”

“I mean, what about the people who work at the bowling alley?”

“What about them?”

“They’ll think we’re idiots. They probably won’t even let us have bumpers.”

“You’re telling me that the minimum-wage bowling alley attendants are going to be offended by us insulting the purity of the sport?”

“Basically?”

“I don’t think they will do that, but wouldn’t it be funny if they did? The bowling cops are going to stop us from living our best lives and bowling how we choose? What is this, communist Romania?”

“It would be like ordering off a kid’s menu.”

“Sometimes it’s smart to order off a kid’s menu.”

“I think you aren’t very good at bowling and don’t want to lose to me.”

“I don’t think that dates are zero-sum competitions and would hope that we both win.”

“I don’t think we can both win.”

“It sounds like we have different views of this.”

“Dating?”

“Bowling.”

“Seems like it might be both.”

“I see.”

“I’m glad.”

“I pity you.”

“Don’t.”

“Too late.”

“Have fun bowling alone with protective bumpers.”

“Have fun living in fear of judgmental bowling attendants.”

And we went our separate ways.

(She ended up getting together with some other journalist who took himself way too seriously, and I think they might still be together. A few months later, I suggested this same date to a different woman, and she got it, and we had a lot of fun, and there was justice in the universe.)

She was wrong about bumpers, and more importantly, she was wrong about kid’s menus.

Sometime’s Ordering Off A Kid’s Menu Is Good

Society says that adults shouldn’t order off the children’s menu, but society is a coward who lacks the courage to live the life it truly desires. It’s not cool to order off the children’s menu? What’s not cool about it? Being thin?