Murtaugh List

One of the many, many, MANY shows people are constantly trying to talk me into watching, "How I Met Your Mother," apparently did an episode about things you're too old for once you turn 30. They called it the Murtaugh List, named after the character in Lethal Weapon who famously said, "I'm too old for this sh**!" Being only days away from the Big 3-0 now, I tried to think of what my Murtaugh List would look like, but quickly came to the realization that the kind of things commonly found on such a list (going to raves, using a beer bong, piercing my belly button) are things I never did, anyway. I've pretty much always been "[insert age here] going on 30," hanging around with adults and older friends and acting far too responsibly to be anything but booooooring compared to every other teen or twenty-something I knew...so what kind of list could someone like me possibly make??

I first decided to consult my brother-in-law, who's known for declaring when, for instance, his wife is officially too old to wear a Twilight t-shirt. I expected a smart-ass response directly related to my recent purchase of...ahem...a New Kids on the Block Tour DVD Plus Authentic Fabric Swatch From Their Tour Wardrobe, which I agree is just begging for ridicule. Instead, I got this:

"Once you're 30 you're too old to put off having fun. Chronology doesn't make you old; being too responsible does. It's too easy to put off what you want to do in place of what you have to do. No one at your eulogy is going to say '...and she kept a really neat front bathroom.' Not that I'm saying don't clean your bathroom, cuz I use it sometimes and dirty bathrooms gross me out."

That's wisdom, people. Pure, smart-ass wisdom, which I interpreted to mean that I should get my belly button pierced while hitting a beer bong at the nearest rave. I wonder if there's such thing as a NKOTB rave....

Beyond that, I have also decided that...

30 is too old not to Do Something.

When I was about 12 years old, I remember walking through a parking lot with Grandma W., when we passed a woman who was leaning against the side of her car, sobbing. My first instinct was to avert my eyes, give her a wide berth, and continue into the store--figuring, I guess, that she was either crazy or that it was none of my business what was wrong with her--but Grandma didn't hesitate to stop, put her arm around the woman, and ask if she was okay. I overheard the woman say that she had just bought the flowers for her father's funeral, and watched as Grandma stood there and let this complete stranger literally cry on her shoulder.

A few years later, when I first learned to drive, I was on my way to school and saw a young woman running across the street behind me, carrying a baby. I had no idea where she was going or whether something was wrong...but any situation requiring someone to run with a baby in their arms couldn't be good, right? I couldn't see where she had gone, though, and told myself it would be silly to go driving around searching for her when it was probably nothing. To this day, I wonder what was going on, whether she needed help, and if so, whether someone had decided, unlike me, to Do Something.

Judging by what happened at Richmond High School's prom last year, and by every episode of the highly addicting, irresistibly fascinating "Primetime: What Would You Do?" specials I always get sucked into, standing by and doing nothing is an epidemic. While it's shocking enough to see that (fake) babies left alone in hot cars or people (actors) being subjected to public racism aren't enough to get most people to speak up, it's even harder to stomach when it's a real person being harmed, and no one feels it's "their business" to do anything but avert their eyes and keep walking--or, in the Richmond case, stand around watching and texting their friends to come check it out. There's never an excuse for being a coward, but when youthful uncertainty is no longer a factor, failing to, as they say, grow a pair and take action is beyond inexcusable; it's disgusting, and I think it's past time for us--myself included--to expect more of ourselves.

Do Something also means that I'm too old to complain about something (my belly flab, for instance) and yet do nothing to address the problem (put down the Thin Mints and exercise, for instance). It's why, instead of just sitting around feeling sad and scared and helpless and angry every time another cancer diagnosis is handed out--and believe me, I definitely do that--I finally joined Relay for Life and at least put a dent in the "helpless" part.

And today, it meant that when I drove past an older man with a prosthetic leg, walking alongside the road two miles from any homes or buildings, I didn't just keep going; I made a U-turn, stopped, and asked him if he needed help. As it turned out, he said he needed the exercise and was just heading to the store (and no, I wouldn't have given a strange man a ride with my children in the backseat--I have seen The Silence of the Lambs and watched enough "Oprah"s to know better--but I could at least have called him a cab or a tow truck). Am I patting myself on the back for such a simple act? No...but I'm also not kicking myself for bypassing him and doing nothing, which the younger, more timid me would have done.

See? I am an adult now. An adult who uses the term "jammies," sneaks bites of ice cream right before dinner, and snickers when her principal threatens over the loudspeaker to "take your balls away" if you don't follow the school basketball rules. Maturity is all relative, you see.

So...have fun, and do something. Quite a short list so far. What did I miss?