When you’re a kid, there’s always a series of birthdays you look forward to, magical ages that grant you new rights in the world of adults. When you’re 4, you want to be 5 so you can go to school. Then you want to be 10, so that you’re a “big kid”. Then it’s 13, with the allure of teenage and PG-13 movies. Then 16, where in my home state you could drive a car. Then 18 for the cigarettes, voting, enlisting, and official adulthood. Then 21 for the booze.

But after 21, birthdays begin to become something to dread. Sure, there’s 25, where you finally get to run for the House of Representatives, 30 for the Senate, and 35 for the Presidency, but those are privileges that mean nothing to most of us. For the rest of us, it’s those decade humps — 30… 40!… 50!!! — with each passing year that bring us closer to the grave.

Well, I’m 36 years old, which puts me right at statistical middle age. But I’ve always considered myself young, thanks to a personal formula I call the Playmate of the Month rule. I figure that you’re not officially old until the Playboy Playmate of the Month was born after you graduated high school. This month, January 2005, I finally became old, as Miss January, Destiny Davis, was born August 25, 1985, three months after I graduated high school. As she was being born, I was returning from Basic Training and beginning my freshman year of college.

I’m getting older… which sure beats the alternative.

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