Maturity

I guess one could say that I am mature. I mean while I was in high school one of my friends use to ask me in an exasperated voice, "Max! When are you going to mature?!" She used to ask me this when I was 15 and I told her, "I will mature when I turn 17." Well then my senior year I finally turned 17 and she said to me one day, "Max! You told me that you were going to mature when you were 17 and now you are! Act mature!" So me being the person that I am, responded, "Well...I'll mature when I am 18." Although I graduated from high school when I was 17, I am please to tell you all that no...I didn't mature even then. I was always the type of kid who looked at maturing as a death sentence! I mean, everyone walking around with their personal calendars unable to make a date without referring to it, walking around all serious, paying bills, having apartments, getting married...there was nothing exciting about it. When I turned 20, I almost died! No longer would I have the precious "teen" suffix. At first, I tried the vanity thing...you know pretending that I was still 19 years old, but then I decided that I have control over how I lived as an adult.
So here I am. Sure I have matured over the years, I would like to meet the person who hasn't, but then again certain things still crack me up, for example;


Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
Don't know?
Because it was dead!


I know that it is a bit morbid, but I don't laugh because some poor monkey has died. I laugh because of the looks on peoples' faces when I tell the joke. Here's another:


Knock Knock!
Whose there?
Impatient Cow
Impatient C (MOOOOOO!) ow who?


Get it? You moo while the person is responding with Impatient Cow who? Just let me get one thing straight with you readers, I don't need anyone to laugh at my jokes...that is what I am for. There have been many times when I was the only one laughing at my jokes and you know what? It makes me laugh harder.

Besides funny random jokes, the way people phrase things also crack me up. One day in my Afro-American Studies class my professor was talking about cotton balls because the topic of the day was slavery. This is how his lecture went:


"I wish I remembered to bring you all some of my cotton balls so you could see what they looked like. So you could feel my balls. See how soft they are. Look at the roundness of my balls."


While he was saying these things he was in some kind of cotton ball trance. His hands looked like he was holding some cotton balls. The way he was talking about his balls one would think that he goes home and rubs them every night. Lol! Anyways! While he was doing this, I was the only one in class who way trying so hard not to laugh, but I couldn't hold it any more. I started dying right in the middle of class. I guess by me laughing that encouraged others in the class to join me. Then he looked at me and said, "You have a dirty mind" and he laughed. But you know what I guess I did mature because when I was a grad student I once had a professor say,

"Does anyone have anything to add? I just shot my load."

I almost fell out of my chair! No one else seemed to have noticed what he said! It was a Thursday night class and it was nearing 9 pm. We were all tired. I was trying so hard not to fall asleep because there were only 9 of us in the class sitting around a table and with him at the head I knew that he would notice if I was drooling. So when he said that, I jumped! I had to first contain my urge to laugh and then I started looking around the classroom to see if anyone else noticed what he said...but they didn't look like they did! I was so upset! I mean we were all graduate students but the teacher just ended a sentence with "I just shot my load!!!!" I was so disappointed to be a graduate student, but the next class I was talking to a guy who sat near me at the far end of the table. I asked him if he remembered what the professor said and he replied, "Yes it was the funniest thing! I saw you jump and while you were looking around the classroom I started saying, 'Don't look at me, don't look at me' because if you did I would have lost it!" That made me feel better, but had one of my professors said that while I was in college, I probably would have laughed while pointing at him.

So although maturity is something that I can't escape because throughout our lives we experiences things that cause us to change our outlook on life as well as ourselves, I plan to meet maturity with a list of my demands that includes my right to turn off all of my regular lights, flick on the disco one, and dance the night away. :-)

Until then readers,

Love, Peace, and Hair Grease!