Lehe: a new man at 21

People ask, “How are things different now that you’re 21?” Here’s how:

The part of my… People ask, “How are things different now that you’re 21?” Here’s how:

The part of my brain that helps me make responsible decisions about alcohol finally grew in. It was midnight. I was halfway through the queue at Mad Mex. Suddenly I collapsed under an implacable deluge of responsibility.

I writhed on the ground for the rest of the morphing period, while the bartender stooped beside me. “Easy fella.” His voice was soft and clear, cutting through the mental chorus that demanded I buy life insurance with such urgency. “You’re having a rough time with the transformation, but it’s cool man.”

A barmaid raised a chilled glass and I sipped. A Bombay with tonic, like nectar. As I sipped, my vision returned and I plowed a quivering hand through my hair, searching for the bump where the new part of my brain had grown. Now my hat won’t fit. Then, I shed my chrysalis. Then, I ate a free brownie.

Everyone is nice to me, because of my, shall we say, civic privileges. I feel like I’ve got my driver’s license all over again! Those were the days, but by 18 I’d resigned myself to the ways of the world saying, “Lewis, eighth grade is a once in a life time event.” Then, I turned 21. As I unload 30-pack after 30-pack into a 16-year-old’s car, his girlfriend squeaks, “I just love you, Lewis.”

People love me! Also, I recently married a Costa Rican who needed U.S. citizenship – a beautiful, feisty morena with sass and charm. It turns out I could’ve done that when I was 18, but I couldn’t have done it drunk without the judge getting mad! Rosa doesn’t love me.

The world is a post-apocalyptic carnival of merry and malady. Where neighborhoods thrived, there are only fields, stark, placid, tragic and scarce of all but weedy foliage. Undereducated children dart across these cracked streets, clamoring in pigeon tongues that, as a perfume for a lost love, awaken memories of English.

Above the block beyond, a stony shipwreck of crumbling infrastructure announces, “I am the culprit of all you see.” “Nay,” I say, in my post-21 vernacular. “Debt and exclusion, deprivation and a blind eye -these are the guilty and so we are. You, just the countenance of what’s in here,” I say, pointing at my soul, really just gesturing broadly at my torso-head area.

My soul isn’t in my limbs, I’m sure. Then, I’m off to a bar, because I’ve never been to New Orleans before and I’m not spending the whole time in the lower ninth ward. I dance off my feelings in the refurbished warehouse district. I really am writing from New Orleans.

I finally got my $6 million trust fund. “I didn’t know I had an uncle Joseph,” I said, pointing to a number of family pictures empty of even a youthful Uncle Joseph, then pointing to my mute grandmother as she shook her head expressively, then pointing to a case file assembled by my private investigator on this very topic. My mom just laughed and said, “Every once in a while, having a lawyer who specializes in estate management as a mother can really come in handy. So can keeping your mouth shut,” she added. Rosa loves that money.

I no longer support Sen. Obama as the best realistic candidate. This isn’t so much a change in Lehe as in Obama. He just outlined his plan to shore up Social Security: “I do not want to cut benefits or raise the retirement age … If we kept the payroll tax rate exactly the same but applied it to all earnings and not just the first $97,500, we could virtually eliminate the entire Social Security shortfall.”

Then, federal taxes alone would bring the top marginal tax on labor from 37.9 percent to 46.7 percent. Also, “My plan will eliminate income taxes for about 7 million seniors making less than $50,000 a year.” Here, he defines “pandering,” and thereby sketches a feudalism where workers labor for the ‘golden years’ of idle 62 year-olds. No thanks. I’m not that old yet.

I can rent a car now. You’re probably thinking, “You’ve gotta be like 25 to rent a car, dude.” Not so. Just go in and talk to the guy about renting a car. He’ll say, “I need to see some ID.” When you turn 21, you love it when people do this, because it makes you feel that you haven’t lost all your youth. Show him your ID. He’ll say, “You’ve gotta be like 25 to rent a car, dude.” Then say, “Oh, I left my good ID … in the rental!” Jump over the counter really fast. Grab that key and escape.

The Avis guy will follow but he’s gotta be like 25 dude, and he just cannot handle your 21-year-old physique as you sprint into the parking lot, press the key wildly and leap into the blinking car. Speeding out of the airport, pray that the little gate is down, so you can drive through it, the very picture of youth and abandon. Rosa will be in your lap with a map, starting to love you, navigating home from New Orleans.

Discuss the merits of turning 21 with Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu.