tantastik dot org

While some may have been able to get by in post-college life with relative ease, I’ve found my recent foray into the corporate world both difficult and punchy. Having myself gone through life without owning any suits or in fact, anything worth more than six dollars, I was faced with a dilemma: where am I going to find a reversible suit? 

To those who have never bought a suit, your first plan should always involve research. Walking into Holt Renfrew, for example, and admitting that you have never bought a suit, but need 5, is a bad start. Luckily, I only ended up with 2, each costing me more than a plane ticket to Italy. I could’ve fed a small village for months with the amount of money I spent. That’s what I should’ve done. Flown to Sicily, given the entire village what I spent at HR and lived in a villa for a month while they sewed a dozen reversible suits for me.

The irony of my million dollar purchases was that I would not last that long in corporate Canadia and I still have a wonderful, unused, grey, pin-striped, D&G suit sitting my closet (tags still attached) where my friend so helpfully pointed out that it was getting wrinkled because of the humidity in my condo. I never realized suits were as high-maintenance as cigars.

I had always heard that incorporating yourself is the best way to stick it to the man. Capitalism was this rumoured Eden of tax shelters and there were words like “bonuses”, “dividends” and “hookers” thrown around.

Though my ambition has no bounds, my energy and youth nearly always drag their feet. I am not that doe-eyed, 21 y.o. tramp I once was anymore. I have expenses now and I need to put away for my retirement when I’m 65 and need an emergency colonoscopy.

With my thirtieth birthday looming ahead like the center of Ike, I knew I needed to take a shot at this self-employment game before rolling over to the less glamourous side of middle-age and calling it a night. Get married, get a mortgage, get TiVo, get a dog, get fat. I want to go into that inevitable death march with arms wide open and welcome it, like I would welcome a warm vasectomy.

Once upon a time, I thought this world was mine for the taking. I was bright, energetic, young and fearless. I once looked derisively at my elders as obstacles and frustrating barriers to me and my riches. I sneered, I glared, I disdainfully dismissed their warnings and apathy. I told these thirty year olds, their time was over and I was going to bring about change. It was going to be me and Obama. We were going to make things happen.

These days, as I frequent the local bars, I notice a new crowd in town. The younger, more energetic, and if possible, even less fearless crowd of 20-somethings doing things I wish I thought of first. They storm out of the gates of college and stake their claim. Marking their territory like dogs. Nearly always missing the mark, but peeing all over everything else. Its their world now, and my generation is what people refer to as ‘retro’. 

When you watch television, and you see your favorite music videos being played on MuchMoreMusic, then you know you’ve lost your youth. Seeing this, your only solace is a half-eaten bucket of fudge brownie Häagen Dazs®. The contestants on Don’t Forget the Lyrics know exactly as many songs as their iPod can hold. Their only defense is that they were born in 1987. 

It probably didn’t dawn on me that I was old until I overheard someone referring to retro style as the 90’s look. I nearly wanted to yell out, Retro?! Those were my teenage years, Junior! but then quickly realizing that admitting that, would probably have had various undesirable generalizations about me. Notably, ones of cowering in shadows and murmuring to oneself about the difficulty of opening child-proof vitamin bottles. 

If this whole new venture into capitalism doesn’t work out for me, I’ll need to work out my next plan. What is the next plan? Whatever it is, it’ll probably involve living in the Upper East Side of New York City, and working at Butter. Maybe I’ll run into some of NYC’s high-society socialites like Tinsley Mortimer. Even better, maybe I can become one!