I was still reeling from my discovery that fresh-faced young boys and girls were indebted to Allergan Pharmaceutical Co. (i.e. Botox makers).  Well, writhing and frothing at the mouth is a truer description of my sentiments.  Were twentysomethings really taking hours off from work to create these facades?  Didn’t they have low-man-of-the-totem-pole jobs to prove themselves at?  Happy hour free chips and salsa to overindulge in?  Cleaning duties to haggle with roommates about?

I wiped off my foamy mouth, and soothed myself with a jar of premium cocktail nuts, honoring the many years I couldn’t afford them.

And there was my beef.  My twenties are filled with memories of things I couldn’t do, or had to do in an awkward, sweaty, tear-stained way.  Like moving to Manhattan, and rotating through friends’ cramped apartments while searching for my own place.  My best friend and I shared a towel for fear of putting our hosts out.   Angry real estate agents bore down on us daily, and we resorted to taking antacids.  We bought two bagels each morning, one of them with cream cheese; we then took the cream cheese overflow and spread it on the other bagel, saving ourselves a total of thirty cents.

And when we broke our hosts’ futon, we were prepared to give up the bagels themselves to cover the repair.  We cried silently into germy pay phones, assuring our parents that all was well and their stern warnings about moving to New York were for naught.  Martyrdom and Generation X go well together.

I bit forcefully into a macadamia.  I was never like today’s kids.  My lunchtime in those days was usually four p.m., when the meeting leftovers would roll out of my office conference room.  I took the bus to IKEA, not mom’s minivan to CB2.  I would have gladly traded in my scratchy Chinatown market t-shirt for a $99 cashmere cotton blend with a “Tofu is cool” message.

I used to walk to Bloomingdale’s to save money.  Drats.  Busted.  At Bloomingdale’s. Often.  Beauty department.  Saks too.  Clinique lipstick section.  Some Clarins spa visits.  Appearance mattered, in order to get chosen from the line by the bouncer for entry into Friday night’s club of choice.  So I could then hand over my weekly food budget as a cover charge.  And buy a five-dollar bottle of water.  And then take a taxi home, crosstown AND uptown.  To do it all again the next night.

No, I was never like these kids.  Except when I was.