Note: I’m a columnist for the Reader Weekly, an alt-weekly newspaper in Duluth, MN. Every Monday I post a new column.

 
“We have a saying in the movement that we don’t trust anybody over 30.”
-Jack Weinberg, Free Speech Movement leader, 1965.

In two weeks, I’ll turn 30 years old. This may come as a shock to some of you, as my column photo makes me look 14 years old, and the content normally found within this column makes me seem roughly half that age. Well believe it, reader. The man whose fart jokes you cherish will soon be part of that group that MTV warns the youth of America to never trust.

Which is kind of ironic, since most of the people who work at MTV are 40 or 50 years old. Kurt Loder himself is 90, and goes to the bathroom using a robot penis.

Regardless, in a few weeks I’ll officially be considered untrustworthy to America’s youth. In response, let me ask you this: Should you really have been trusting me before? I drink too much, I spend more time playing video games than most college kids, and I write 850-word essays about barfing. I’m not exactly a suitable replacement for your neighborhood priest or rabbi.

You know that friend of yours who promised you could sell your parents’ prescription meds at school without getting in trouble? He got the idea from an article I wrote. Remember when your other friend swore you wouldn’t break your leg if you jumped off the roof, and you did it because you were drunk? He read that bogus piece of info in this column. In fact, I’m pretty sure I made it into a contest.

Well now that I’m turning 30, the things I write are going to become even more untrustworthy. If anything, my turning 30 can only increase everyone’s enjoyment of this column.

If you’re a young person, let me assure you that the columns I write will not mature as I cross this new threshold. I know you think people over 30 are all boring, responsible adults who have given up fun in favor of careers and families, but not everything is as it seems. In fact, most old people are even more immature than you. Don’t believe me? Go home tonight and ask your father his favorite fart joke. His enthusiastic response might just blow your mind.

Old people are very deceiving that way. We dress up for work, only to spend the entire day on Facebook and various celebrity gossip websites. We drive our kids to soccer practice and then sit in the car and look up pictures of boobs on our cellphone. We buy expensive booze so our drinking problem seems classy, hide our porn underneath piles of Time and Newsweek magazines, and conceal any proof of our interesting past in the deepest corners of our attic.

Sure, that middle-aged neighbor of yours always calls the cops on your house parties, but he doesn’t do it because he’s over 30. He does it because he’s a dick. That old lady who works at the corner store and follows you around to make sure you don’t steal anything? She’s also a dick. That cop who hangs around downtown, making sure you don’t skateboard? He, too, is a dick. Their dickishness has nothing to do with their age. Everyone thought those people were dicks when they were your age, too.

There’s only one reason not to trust people over 30: Because people that age are much more likely to be serial killers, cannibals or thieves. David Berkowitz? Over 30. Jeffrey Dahmer? Over 30. The people in charge of AIG? Way over 30. Pretty much every horrible event that has ever happened has been perpetrated by people over 30. People under 30 are loud and obnoxious.

When I hit that milestone in a few weeks, my motto will change from “Don’t trust anybody over 30″ to “Don’t trust serial killers, cannibals, and thieves.” Which basically means no more drinking in Superior, WI.

I’m sure people over the age of 30 are reading this wondering why I’m making such a big deal over a number. They’re also probably wondering why I just off-handedly referred to people their age as cannibals. The answer to both questions is, “because the Reader Weekly can’t afford copy editors.”

I know 40 is the new 30, and 50 is the new 40, and 90 is the new retirement age for baby boomers, but I can’t help but think that 30 is a little too different from 29 for my tastes. But I guess if George Clooney is still considered sexy at 47, and David Letterman is still funny at 62, and the publisher of the Reader Weekly is equally old and has still never held a real job, then being old might be okay for me, too.

If not, I’ll just do what other people in denial of their age do: Avoid the real world by applying for graduate school.