Me and my brother Bryce are at the local pizza hut with the family. We're just discussing things, and a neighbor comes up in conversation. Tom. When he eats pizza, he puts the red peppers on and doesn't even break a sweat. We speculate it's because he's Mexican. Or we think he is. It's either that or Italian.
But I do remember thinking how cool it would be to one day be a grown up and get to eat pizza with red peppers on it.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at "Barro's." A delicious pizza place by my work. As I struggled to shake the peppers out of that little container that doesn't seem to emit any thing very easily, I was thrown back to that moment in pizza hut thinking in awe about how great it would be to be like Tom. And there I was. I had grown up. I had become Tom.
And then, I was in Idaho Falls at my parents house. I heard the fire alarm going off. As my heartbeat went out of control, I was no longer a bona fide adult.
The fire alarm in my parents home is electric. Whenever the power went out, and subsequently came back on, the alarm blared. Not just a normal beep. But a blood-curdling sound. The alarm was positioned right outside my door, and I remember waking up at night to that sound, terrified that our house was on fire. It never was, but I usually had an emergency kit all packed up just in case I needed to jump out of my window.
When I heard that noise, yes, I was transported back to 20 years ago, or more, and got scared. I couldn't go back to sleep. And luckily, the power kept flickering, so I heard it about 10 times. Then, I remembered that I don't like how windy it is in Idaho.
Every positive move towards adulthood is countered with a step back to...not adulthood.
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