A few thoughts on growing up:

Way back, years ago, I was a teenager.  And hence, stupid.

Teenage boys, for some strange reason, get a liberal dosage of stupid starting at the age of around thirteen, with this dosage of stupid slowly decreasing as they age.  Eventually, they hit their sixties or seventies, and most of the stupid dosage has gone away, just in time for the senility dosage to kick in.

Anyways, I had the good fortune of being the "voice of reason" amongst my group of friends, which basically meant that my dosage of stupid was only slightly higher than my dosage of "instinct for self-preservation".  I was, for example, the first to say "hey, guys, maybe you shouldn't be playing with that deer carcass", or "I don't think those beams can support our weight".  I was usually the first to say "you know, I think he has a gun, and we are trespassing" - always in a terrified whisper.

Sometimes, though, my stupid dosage got amplified and the voice of reason would use his position of power in the group to stage really stupid exercises that came close to winning all of us Darwin Awards. 

Teenage boys.  How any of us survive, I'll never know.

I say this because I feel I've shaken off most of my juvenile stupidity.  I am, for the most part, a mature enough male - I work a steady job, am a responsible first aider, and I don't even laugh at those crude "Dead baby" jokes anymore.

But there comes a time in every man's life where he decides it's okay to do stupid things, "for old time's sake".  And ,any of those times come when a man has a birthday.

And is exposed to tequila.

At the time of this post, yours truly is in a bar somewhere in Victoria, doing stupid things that would make his sixteen year old self proud.  I imagine, in fact, that sometime around this posting, I'll be on stage at a karaoke bar, singing "Bohemian Rhapsody".  Poorly.

That's right.  The former voice of reason is now being put to better use, mangling classic rock hits.  Bring it on.