8 Signs Your Inner Child Is Winning

1. You have a hard time being responsible at the grocery store.

You go there with the best of intentions, truly. You want to get some avocados, some endives, some tomatoes, and some vitamin supplements. Mature people things. But then you pass by the candy aisle, and that voice in the back of your head which is like “What are you earning an actual salary for if not to be able to buy yourself giant bags of mini Reese’s cups at random?” starts screaming at top volume. You can’t not buy the Swiss Cake Rolls. You are overwhelmed with how many flavors Toaster Strudels come in, and how many you have yet to give yourself the pleasure. Before you even get to the alcohol section, you are overwhelmed with joy at all of the possibilities of cake mix for your impromptu dessert-dinner tonight. It’s unhealthy.

2. You refuse to admit when you’re wrong.

There will often come a certain point in arguments where you become totally aware that you’re wrong, and possibly cruel, and coming off as a total asshole. This will be the moment where you dig your heels in and decide that, no matter what lows this argument stoops to, you are not going to admit your faults and end things on an even semi-classy note. It’s just that, no matter how much you’re being a petulant douchebag, no pain could possibly be greater than having to break down and admit when you’re wrong. Empires have been built and destroyed in the time it has taken you to say that the other person was right about the mating habits of bonobos in a bar debate that one time.

3. You throw tantrums for things you can’t change.

All of a sudden, your computer starts acting up. There is a problem, and you’re not sure what it is. But instead of waiting until a reasonable hour and taking it to someone with even a molecule of competence to help you out with things, you’re just going to start crying in the fetal position. You just hate the world, and things aren’t fair, and how are you supposed to live with internet, and this will never get better, and you should just start throwing things at the wall to make it better. (It is usually around this time when you kick something out of anger and fly into an even blinder rage when you stub your toe in the process.)

4. You think people have cooties.

What were once just a bunch of gross boys on the playground outside of third grade are now a bunch of fedora-wearing, 80% OKC enemy-being, friend zone-lamenting boys that seem to overwhelm you with an uncomfortable bout of nausea every time they come around. It doesn’t have to be any more complex than that — they just have cooties, and they make you sad.

5. Your favorite activity is often hanging out and watching TV.

No matter how many times you try to get involved in new clubs/sports/activities, you always end up going back to the old standard of curling up with a bunch of episodes of Daria and no one to bother you. Although part of you is like, “Damn, it’s kind of pathetic how much I enjoy this, I should really be out there enjoying my prime days of youth and accomplishing something worth note instead of just shutting society out for the night and turning my brain off,” an even bigger part is just happy to be out of the cold weather and in your jammies.

6. You get incredibly jealous over insignificant things.

Someone gets an iPad, and there is a tiny little voice within you that is 50 shades of righteously indignant about it. Why aren’t you getting an iPad? How does one procure an iPad? They shouldn’t have that iPad when you don’t. It’s not fair. It’s not right. God would not like this if he were looking. No matter how much you didn’t actually care about having this before, now that you see someone else having it while looking all chic and happy in your daily life, and you are overwhelmed with the need to have it. Of course, we often take these things completely for granted the second we get our hands on them, but that’s not important. What’s important is that not another living soul has something that we want while we are unable to attain it.

7. You are easily entertained.

You want to pretend that you only zone out for ten minutes at a time watching particularly well-made GIFs when you’re stoned, but we both know that’s not true.

8. You hate sharing.

You know that it’s probably not healthy to experience a desire to punch someone as a first response to them asking to have a bite of this pizza you’re really excited about, but you can’t help it. This is your pizza, and you have worked hard to get it, and when someone around you is trying to get their grubby little hands on it — you go right back to the cafeteria in elementary school, when you had scrimped and saved for weeks to buy a pack of ~preciously forbidden~ candy bars before school hours and brought it with you to lunch. Becky-come-lately wants to have some. “Come on,” she says, “Share.” You decide right then and there that you hate Becky, and would be completely indifferent if she were to fall off a cliff after school. You feel the same way today about the Beckies of the world, and are not going to share your hard-earned food just because it’s the “adult” thing to do. Everyone can go fuck themselves, you are eating.