Clerk at a 7-11, Pumped Gas at a Sunoco, Led a Small Country

I was out the other night with some of the out-of-towners who came home for the holidays.  It's been a while since I've been out, and I think I've forgotten the routine.

At one point, someone mentioned that some of the kids in the place probably hadn't been born yet when we graduated high school.

That's one of those perspective shifts that sneaks up and kicks you in the nuts.  It's like that time I grew some facial hair, got fat, shaved the facial hair, and realized how fat I had gotten.  Which was yesterday.

Anyways, it brought on this whole thought process of what it was like to be 19.  How different our priorities were.  How rosy our perceptions were.  How *passionate* we were about everything.  (I use "passionate", but feel free to substitute "hormonal" or "crazy" if they seem more appropriate.)

I remembered the chipped tooth from the drunken blowfish on the phone booth,  The ticket for doing 30 over in a residential zone.  And that message left on Jen's machine that I wanted desperately to take back.

Then today I hear that Bhutto's 19 year old son is leading his mom's party in Pakistan's next election.  I wonder what kind of phone messages that kid leaves?

But he's sure gonna have a helluva resume when he finishes college.