Turning 21 does little other than make you realise how you’ve achieved nothing, how time is transient and you are basically running to your grave, and that your face has put on bloaty weight since you were 17. With that in mind Platform has compiled a pre 21 to do list.
TELL YOUR PARENTS YOU HATE THEM
I never told my parent’s I hated them, so whenever I’m there for Sunday lunch I strop around like a smelly Panic at The Disco! fan, while they try and serve the roast chicken around my huge and unbridled “attitude problem”. I’m pretty sure if I had invested in a ridiculous pubescent outburst I would be able to sip tea with them now and talk about my “interesting” and “varied” opinions.
When you do say, “I HATE YOU STUPID PARENTS”, make sure you mean it. Look right into their cloudy glaucoma-ed pupils, and feel the bile hatred bubbling in your throat. Your spotty little fists will be balled up as you spit out those inevitable words, and don’t be surprised at the miraculous lack of guilt you feel as they begin their middle-aged, radio 4 snivelling. You should hate your parents, look at them - he’s wearing a Bill Cosby sweater and she lisps and can’t say your boyfriend’s name. After you shout your damning proclamation, stumble your way up the suburban stairs and slam that bedroom door. Unless your door has been removed in some desperate attempt to “punish you” for sneaking lispy boyf into your room for sloppy snogging. They probably picked that tip up from Supernanny. GOD I FUCKING HATE THEM.
SNEAK OUT
When I was fifteen my parents banned me from going to an all-night rave in Kings Cross. I took the news pretty well considering I’d just worked my tits off through Summer exams, and not left the house for about 34 years. On the night of the party I dressed in my fluffiest pajamas to evoke rosy memories of “cute and innocent” in my parents over-protective brains, and slippered my way into the kitchen to get some hot milk and a hair ruffling from daddy. Insert loud yawn and sleepy schlep back upstairs. As soon as my door closed I stripped off the jim jams and put on my raving clothes – builders jacket and mini skirt natch, throwing myself out the window. What followed was one of the top 13 nights of my sad little life, including meeting Andy C and watching the sun come up with some douchebag raver I’d fancied for ages. We drove home at 7 and were back in bed at 8. It was MDMAzing, and made all the better by the fact it was a stolen night.
Then obviously my parents felt really guilty for not letting me go and pressed a pile of notes into my sweat, cheating hand. I spent it on whistles and UV paint, and returned the following weekend.
GET TOLD A SECRET YOU LITERALLY CAN’T TELL ANYONE EVER…THEN TELL EVERYONE
I broke up with my friend’s boyfriend, pretending to be her. I was round her house watching Clueless or some other CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE, and somewhere between the stoner’s make over and Cher seducing that gay guy, she decided she wanted out of their relationship. He was just too intense and protective you know? And where was it all heading? Like, did she really want to be so tied down? (they’d been seeing each other for about 2 weeks and only snogged with tongues one and a quarter times). She drop called him but squealed when he picked up and then whined that she couldn’t do it. I’d never had a boyfriend because I was into World of Warcraft and only wore black so I jumped at the chance to pretend I would EVER be in that situation. I put on my swine flu voice, and yeah, maybe got a little bit carried away (I cried) and, yeah, perhaps went a little bit overboard on the details (I said I thought I might be gay). It was horrific and she was morally mortified so I swore blindly that I wouldn’t tell anyone ever, not a single soul, no SERIOUSLY, I promise, not til the day I die! Never! My friend’s name is Susan Keldrige and you can email her here: [email protected]
Oops!
GO THROUGH A REALLY BAD PHASE
Someone I know got a ‘Korn’ tattoo. It’s on their right leg and it’s Jupiter huge. He can’t wear shorts even when he goes to the fucking desert for Burning Man, and all potential girlfriends have to have the inky atrocity carefully explained to them so they don’t notice it during sex, freak out, and vomit on his wang. Everyone should have a little fuck up like this, whether it be bleaching your hair when you’ve got a coal black uni-brow, or becoming a prurient vegetarian who strips off in Oxford Street and covers themselves in dead ferrets “to make a point”. Go on, you’re young, be a complete prick.
FUCK UP YOUR BODY
When you’re rolling around the nursing home, merely tapping an SMS to that porridge sharing hotty in intensive care will render you bent over in crippling pain, your finger bones aching at the effort of writing “cum 2 the hospice 4 a quicky yeh?” You will curse that lost youth of hopping fences and breaking drunken bones. So make the most of it, and aim to get 2 heinously bloody injuries a year. No idea why I used the word “heinously”. I am pretty sure that’s a surfing term. Really embarrassed.
DUMP YOUR CHILDHOOD FRIEND FOR THE COOL KIDS
Your mum loves Claire. She’s always saying how Claire is such a wonderful influence on you. That mammaried bitch can’t get enough of your pastel pink friendship, so much so that she crowbars her way into your “hang outs” and bakes you crumbly brownies. Claire has to fucking go. I know you’ve been friends for ages, and she always walks with you to town so you can spy on HMV boy, but she’s lame. She has no sense of humor, is obsessed with Solange, and says stuff like, “I don’t want a boyfriend till I get to Cambridge”. It’s harsh but let’s be honest - because don’t think I haven’t noticed your eyes straying towards the scary girls who stand by the bike sheds, spitting and cackling really loudly at ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Run to them now, and run like the fucking wind. Staying with Claire ensures you a future of wearing fleeces and going to rugby with your boyfriend who’s so boring he’s nicknamed narcolepsy Nigel. Don’t worry about Claire, she’ll be fine. Although she will never ever EVER forgive you.
START AN AWFUL BAND
Write loads of songs about anarchy and “the man”, don’t smile for 3 months, and go to parties where you’ll only talk to the host’s 12 year-old brother, “because at least he’s fucking real”. Make sure the high point of your career with “Twisted Rejects” or “Goody Night Sweetheart” is at the School Talent Show or else you might accidentally score a record deal and end up really believing your own hype, becoming a mutated version of what you could have been, and having your main fan base in brain dead Accountants in their late twenties. Holla @Coldplay!
WORDS: ELIZABETH SANKEY