Monkey see, monkey poop

At this rate, I'm never gonna be an official grown-up.\nThis is because a recent report compiled by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center concluded that most Americans don't believe someone can be called an official grown-up until they reach the decrepit age of 26.\nI can vote, drink and touch the top of my door without leaving my feet, but I still can't be called a grown-up.\nAnd that's just peachy with me. According to the survey, the things most Americans associate with grown-ups are a completed education, a full-time job, a marriage, kids and financial security. Honestly. Who wants those things? Love, money … diapers. Ewww.\nNobody wants to be a grown-up. Grown-ups are people like Dick Cheney, Diane Sawyer and your dad. You don't ask grown-ups questions like, "Do you know where I can find a really great party?" or "Want a fruit roll-up?" \nYou do ask grown-ups questions like, "So, what does Metamucil taste like?" That's simply not a question I want to be asked anytime soon.\nSo what can we call all those kids between the ages of 20 and 25 who seem to be floating aimlessly around in a giant pool of nothingness and video games?\nThe term "young adult" doesn't really apply. That phrase seems to be reserved for teenagers who like to say the word "literally." I suppose we could be called plain old adults, but that just means we've survived long enough to start having ear hair. \nIn fact, being called an adult can almost be thought of as an insult.\nThere is a specific reason that mature monkeys are called adults and not grown-ups. That's right. It's because monkeys don't have full-time jobs. Reuters reported researchers at Plymouth University in England recently gave a group of monkeys a computer to see if they could acquire the skills to handle full-time jobs. The monkeys came close.\n"At first the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it," researcher Mike Phillips said.\nJust like at the office.\nHowever, in a month the monkeys were only able to produce five pages of work consisting mostly of the letter "S." Not bad, but they should probably learn a few more letters before they're ready for a 40-hour work week. Plus, they had a small problem with defecating on the keyboard. Which isn't actually even a problem as long as they didn't get anything on the "S" key.\nSo that is the main difference between being an adult and a grown-up. Adults are old enough to defecate on a keyboard. Grown-ups are mature enough to realize that people who defecate on keyboards probably have tails. However, since me and most of the humans in my age group don't defecate on keyboards, we can't be referred to as monkeys either.\nIt seems like we're not only trapped in this void between being a teenager and a grown-up, we're also stuck without a generalized name.\nWe, the nameless, should celebrate this time without responsibilities like going to work on time and remembering to feed a human child. We should use this time to do wonderful things like volunteer work and discovering ourselves. Or we could use this time to conduct amazing research using monkeys, computers and the old theory: "Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare."\nThe important thing is that we survive until we can become official "grown-ups"when we turn 26. Let's just pray Sen. Richard Lugar doesn't speak at that ceremony.