Today, ladies and gentlemen, I have passed a tipping point. I loathe saying it, but I figure that I have to face this disturbing fact sooner or later:

My parents are officially cooler than me.

Now THAT, I have to say, has got to be the epitome of sadness.

So it’s just after dinner and the family is peacefully sated around the table, channel surfing through the vagaries of public broadcasting and non-ratings season televisual garbage, waiting for the weather report, when an old family friend rings. Daddy Dearest is off the phone in record time, and informs us that the aforementioned family friend is holding a 21st birthday bash for his newly-minted son that evening, and has invited the family along. Festivities shall begin at eight thirty, he informs us, but speeches will only commence after ten. The parentals, being the domestic, antisocial neat freaks I had formerly pegged them out to be, were fully intending on making a Guest Appearance, say, an hour after the party had gotten under way, and on sneaking out of the place as soon as possible in order to retire to bed at a sedate and suitably middle-aged time of before eleven o’ clock. They changed their minds, however, when I duly informed them that it was not 21st birthday etiquette to depart before the speeches were well under way. They took this fact in their stride pretty well, and thus set out a little after nine o’ clock, barely stopping to throw something on over their terribly daggy weekend garments.

(Of course, the obligatory invitation had been extended to yours truly, but my last 21st celebration, which most likely was classier and had more free-flowing alcohol and nicer hors d’oeuvres than this occasion was bound to have, was a severely mind-numbing and awkward experience I had no intention of voluntarily putting myself through again. And plus, the only thing more uncool than gatecrashing the 21st birthday bash of someone one barely knows and has not spoken to in over six years, presentless, is gatecrashing the 21st birthday bash of someone one barely knows and has not spoken to in over six years, presentless – with one’s parentals in tow.)

It was like some kind of bizarre Twilight Zone had descended upon my household – as I sat there making a desultory attempt to clear the table while watching Clueless on TV for about the eighty-fifth time, my very own parents were frocking up to go to the 21st party of a Bright Young Thing. For a moment I was completely overwhelmed as the full extent of the surrealness of this role-reversal situation hit me – wasn’t I supposed to be the one flitting to one social function or another? Shouldn’t this be MY wild and obligation-free summer where I set out to do nothing more than to kill the maximum amount of brain cells in the minimum amount of time possible? And why the hell were MY PARENTS going out to a party while I stayed at home doing the dishes???

And while the parentals were no doubt imbibing of the 200 slabs of beer that had reportedly been purchased for this very event, and no doubt mingling adeptly with the parentals and various rellies of the Bright Young Thing on whom all this extravagant attention was being lavished, I did nothing more rebellious than staying on Instant Messenger past eleven o’clock, and loading the dishwasher without the detergent and forgetting to switch it on. It was a horrible, horrible feeling, like a premature geriatric fast-forward that had arrived about forty years too soon – I was sitting in front of the computer, swathed in a fuzzy bathrobe and novelty slippers, keeping a vigilant eye on the clock as it ticked past midnight and beyond, waiting for the lights and the sound of an engine cutting in the driveway. At last, the situation became far too surreal for my liking, and I am completely embarrassed to admit that I was already tucked into bed (with an Agatha Christie novel, no less!) before the parentals finally rolled in the door.

That’s it. I am NOT going to take this any longer. As utterly pathetic as it is to have to wrest the mantle of cool from one’s parents, this is EXACTLY what I am setting out to do, right now, from this moment on, even if it takes me the entire summer, even if (or should I say, ESPECIALLY if…) I have to get unimaginably trashed in order to do it. NO MORE am I going to be the least cool member of this family! NO MORE am I going to suffer the humiliation of Instant Messenger and early nights while my very own parents fly off to wildly age-inappropriate parties!

This is one battle, ladies and gentlemen, that Phoebe is NOT going to take lying down…