Posted by Editor’s Note (yes the author and the editor are the same, still makes me the editor and I can leave notes if I like): Only read this post if you like me and think I’m cool.
Now that we got that out of the way, I think I’m having a quarter life crisis and I need to be convinced I’m still a member of the youth or else I would’ve just wasted like 75 bucks.
It was my birthday on Sunday: the Big 23. Despite me still sleeping in a twin bed and caring deeply about Spongebob, this is the age where you’re not really a kid anymore. It’s not easy. You’re still a child but expected to do adult things like file your taxes and drink water. I mean they call it the “Jordan” year for a reason, because you just cry all the time.
So in order to counteract my inevitable adult persona that is trying to assume full form, I’ve been doing different things to make me feel younger. For example, I’ve been eating Dino Oatmeal for breakfast.
I’ve been sending girls I have crushes on flirty texts like this:
To which they usually respond “Math homework? I’m a sales associate at a tech company in Houston and I’m engaged. I haven’t heard from you since Sophomore year of high school. How did you even get this number?”
Playing hard to get… just what this young buck was hoping for.
And last but not least, I’ve started wearing diapers. And to be honest, it’s been helping. I do feel adolescent, one could even say ~infantile~, but something was missing. I needed something else to get me a metaphorical seat at the metaphorical cool kids table in the metaphorical cafeteria of life.
And that’s when it came to me, the thing REAL kids want to do…is be a dad.
Think about it, the “dad bod” was in just a few years back. It was a huge trend amongst young college students. Then in the last few years “dad hats” became a thing. I mean if you’re a cool teen with an instagram you damn sure have seen this thing promoted at some point.
And now what’s the big “dad trend”?
Is it dad pants? Just really wide-long blue jeans? Nope.
Is it dad tees? Shirts with stick figures on them that say stuff like “a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office”? Nope.
Is it dad shoes? Like chunky plain white New Balances you’d expect to be worn with cargo shorts or by male nurses?
Uh. Yeah. Yeah it is.
Just a few years ago these kicks were being called the “White Barbecue 12’s”
and now, in the 2019th year of our lord Jesus Christ, these bad boys are going for $90 on New Balance dot com and selling like hot cakes to 17 year olds who have fit pics to post and old people to roast.
I can’t be roasted, not now. I have the confidence of a 13 year old girl on Valentine’s day after not getting a single piece of candy dropped in her brown bag. Not even from the girls. Not even from the teacher who is required by the school to give one to each student so no one gets left out. That kinda shit scars you forever. And that’s how I feel.
So what do I do to boost my confidence? Buy shoes that only confident people can pull off. Like an idiot. I looked up pics of the shoes online and they looked cool as hell.
I mean you can’t see what’s above but I’m sure it’s a dude with a six pack and a cool hipster babe wrapped around his arm who wears big glasses and listens to bands you’ve never heard. I work right near Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design…so that’s the target audience for your boy right now.
So I get them delivered to my doorstep, put them on, aaaaaand let’s just say I am not the six pack guy I thought I would magically turn in to once I put these on.
So it turns out in order to make “dad” things look cool you have to be cool already. If you have a dad bod and you’re Chris Pratt, it works. If you are wearing a dad hat and you’re Justin Bieber, it works. If you’re wearing Dad shoes and you’re Jaden Smith, it works, (even if you’re dabbing…and that’s not easy to do).
But I spent legit $75 on these (shipping not included), so I’m calling to action anyone who made it this far in the blog to tell me I’m cool enough to wear them. I can’t waste $75 ok, I spent half of that knowingly last Saturday and by Sunday afternoon I found out I actually spent twice that. I can’t afford to let this be a dud of an investment.
So gas me up. Don’t gas me down.
And if you see a non-cool dude like myself wearing something a lil out of the box this weekend, give him a compliment. It’s the difference between him feeling like the aforementioned 13 year old on February 14th, or feeling like the quarterback of the local middle school team who got a candy gram from every girl in class. His name’s probably Dustin or something. And he’s the coolest. Ladies want him, and men want to be him. Might just give him my shoes if this doesn’t work out. He can def pull them off.
Freaking Dustin, man.
djchickenparm.com 