Coasting Through Life

A little less than 10 years back, I bought myself a vacuum cleaner. I decided at the time that this was the most "adult" purchase I'd ever made, and it made me feel freakin' old at the time. I felt in that moment like it wasn't the size of the expense that made a purchase feel "adult," but rather the level of responsibility to it.

I mean, I'd bought two cars by that point in my life. But basically everybody I knew had bought a car. Friends I'd had during high school had bought their own cars. There's too high a fun factor in cars for them to feel like any kind of badge of adulthood.

But that damn vacuum. Who the hell buys a vacuum, except for a responsible adult who wants to keep his house clean? What fun can be derived from a vacuum cleaner?

When I bought my condo earlier this year, I sort of expected to have another "damn, this is an adult purchase" moment. And I kind of did, but I have to honestly say it didn't make me feel as "old" as buying that stupid vacuum cleaner. Maybe it's because so many of my friends had already bought houses, it didn't seem like as big a step as it actually was.

Well today, I made another purchase that "aged" me. And I didn't even spend more than $20.

Somewhere along the way in life, in one of the shared living situations I've been in, I inherited these coasters I've been carting around. They're these thick marble jobs that look really classy. You'd think, "damn, nice coasters." I mean, assuming you stopped to think about them at all. Hopefully, you don't. But anyway, they look like nice coasters.

But they're complete crap. What happens is, when any kind of moisture collects around the base of your glass, it forms some kind of hyper-suction with this smooth, flat slab of marble. So you go to pick up your drink, and you take the coaster right with it. Except that each one of these things is solid marble, and weighs like a pound. So you get your drink about five inches off the table, and then the water tension gives way, and SLAM!!!! This one pound slab of marble goes crashing into the table.

I'd long since learned to just flip the damn things over, because the "bottom" is a simple layer of cork. But of course with that side up, it defeats the purpose entirely of them looking nice. In fact, they look horrible, because the stupid UPC labels on the bottom of each one never could be peeled off. They just tore against the cork and left this ugly mess.

Now obviously, I can't be much of a conventional "bachelor" if any of this actually annoyed me. But what can I say? It did. Oh, I lived with it for something like five years, so clearly it didn't bug me that much. But today, I could take no more, and I actually bought this nice set of new coasters that isn't crap.

And somehow, this felt like the most adult purchase I've made since that vacuum cleaner. This one almost felt worse. I mean, that vacuum cleaner was a pure necessity. This was totally not. And I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I actually feel a bit happy about these new coasters. It's completely ridiculous.

I had three people come over to my place tonight, and all three actually noticed the coasters. In fairness, I think they all knew the story of the old crap coasters, and the reason they always sat "shredded cork side" up. But I think I maybe had the tiniest fraction of a second of pride over their compliments.

Then, of course, I began silently berating myself for having so lost touch with my inner child that I could derive any sort of happiness from having bought stupid coasters.