I'm Immature

I wasn't always immature, but I seem to be getting more so as I grow older.

It's supposed to work the opposite way, right?

When I was eight, I was watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, and emulating John Cleese's "city gent" characters by dressing in black three-piece suits and bowler hats. I had a vocabulary far elevated beyond my chronological years. In elementary school, I watched ABC Nightly News with my parents, or without them. I once held a mini tape-cassette recorder up to the television so that I could tape the ABC Nightly News theme music, because I liked the importance of the trumpets and the base drums.

I would sit at my desk in my bedroom, in a sport coat and tie and I would listen to the theme music alone in my room and pretend I was Peter Jennings until the tape wore out.

I was a fan of Bach's harpsichord concertti. I was writing letters to the Austrian government in defense of Antonio Salieri amidst rising speculations of his culpability in Mozart's death. I wrote to the Queen as a proponent of arming British police officers.

Buckingham Palace wrote back, addressing me as "Master," which I liked.

As I've grown older, though, I've begun to notice my maturity level sloping downward.

I routinely prance around the house squealing in a high-pitched manner, frequently wearing questionable amounts of clothing and behaving in an otherwise disordered way that would understandably leave one to believe that I was stored in an airtight container for most of my infancy. I talk to myself a lot, which is perhaps less a sign of immaturity and more a sign of impending insanity.

I'm ready for it.

I feel like my sense of humor is also deteriorating, perhaps tending towards the sophomoric. I wasn't very sophomoric when I was a sophomore, at least, I don't think I was. Nowadays, though, my antics would probably make a sophomore cringe.

Last night, in the supermarket, (where they sell pancake-wrapped sausage... "ON A STICK!") I was fumbling through the coffee aisle. Instead of buying Starbucks brand coffee, as is required by law, my eyes focused on a brand of coffee I had never seen before: "Peet's Coffee." I stopped and stared at the bag, in disbelief at the name of this particular flavor of Peet's Coffee.

"Major Dickason's Blend."

I mean, what are people thinking? According to some other numbnut's blog, a gentleman named Key Dickason, a retired Army officer (who was actually a Lieutenant) was a regular customer in Peet's Coffee's original coffee shop, and you could create your own blend there back in those days. So that's how this ridiculous thing got started, according to wikhistory.

If this is a true story, I really like how Key Dickason can promote himself from Lieutenant, skipping right over Captain, to fucking Major. So he can change his rank with no problem, but they leave his ridiculous name? That's just silly.

In the supermarket, I started imagining names for other Peet's Coffee blends:

Brevet Major-General Twat's Aroma

Lieutenant-General Grundle's Grounds

Colonel Crotchington's Coffee

Second Lieutenant Bumwhacker's Java

I immediately selected this brand, obviously for no other reason than the name, and showed it to Mrs. Apron.

"Major Dickason?" she said, one eyebrow dubiously raised, first at the package, then at me.

"Can you imagine if they combined with "Chock Full O' Nuts?" I asked, grinning from ear to sophomoric ear.

"Yeah, it'd be Major Dickason's Nuts." Well, I guess she's getting a little sophomoric, too. Must be contagious.

I immediately started cracking up in the market, because the formerly higher functioning components of my brain are obviously eroding/leaking. Maybe that's what earwax really is: brain sophistication detritus.

By the way, I don't know how I feel about Major Dickason's blend as a libation. I mean, it's wet and brown like all other coffee, but, to my sophomoric palate, it just tastes like sugar.