I am a bit of a doomsday prepper.

And I’m actually not embarrassed by this. In fact, if you get more than two drinks in me (I’m very much a lightweight) I will probably start espousing to you the benefits of a “go bag” and why everyone should have one. (By the way I’m dead serious, I’ve even linked to it on my Amazon storefront)

I think this all started when I was a kid and found out that quicksand exists. Didn’t it collectively traumatize us all? And why? Why? I have no idea, but I really thought that one day I was going to have to punch quicksand in the face (and by “punch” I mean stand perfectly still because you shouldn’t move at all when you’re in quicksand)

There’s also a host of other things that I thought would be tre important when I was older. It turns out, not so much! But here are 6 things that I thought would one day be a “big deal”

1. Taking an outfit from day to night

If there’s anything that magazines hammered into my brain as a child it was how to take an outfit from day to night. They were more insistent on this point than they were about giving me an eating disorder, and trust me, they tried hard to do that too!

Nearly every magazine I read growing up had a section about how to take your office outfit (day) to a happy hour outfit (night) and I grew up thinking that these multi-dimensional outfits would be a huge part of my life down the road.

It turns out, who cares? I’ve worked in tech all my life, where people wear AllBirds and jeans. Also, most people now are WFH (possibly forever) and the magazines are probably instead just writing articles about “how to dress for a Zoom call” and stuff like that. And they’re still trying to give you an eating disorder!

2. Getting stuck in quick sand

I don’t know why, but as a child I was convinced that I was going to have multiple run-ins with quick sand as an adult. The minute I was allowed to go online I googled “how to get out of quick sand” and for whatever earthly reason, I just thought this would be a regular occurrence in adult life.

It hasn’t happened yet…but I’m still someone convinced it will happen to me (at least) once. And FYI - if you’re ever caught in it, don’t move around that much. It makes you sink deeper into the quicksand. Although I’m sure you already know this because somehow we all thought we would encounter quick sand?? Odd.

3. Doing Kegel exercises

As a tween, I was obsessed with getting my hands on a Cosmopolitan magazine. I would offer to go grocery shopping with my parents just so I could get a chance to sneak a peek at the Cosmo cover in the check-out line. And let me tell you, the word kegel was all over the magazine for a few years.

As a child, I thought that doing kegel exercises was the most important (and wildly adult) thing you could ever do.

I am now older, and have since learned that kegel exercises are also something you mostly do after childbirth when you suffer from incontinence. This has made the concept much less sexy, and also, I do kegel exercises about 50000x less as an adult than I thought I would be doing them. But writing this has made me realize, I should do them. You do it, too! Let’s all do a kegel exercise together right now for 10 seconds.

Good for us.

4. I thought paying bills would be a whole situation

As a child, I thought that paying the bills was an experience. I truly thought that once a month, you would have to sit down at your kitchen table, take out a calculator, notepad and pen, and like…figure out which bills you owed and become an accountant for a little bit.

Now I just pay Spectrum with the click of a button. And I get angry when I see my Con-Ed bill, and how obscenely high it is, but I also just pay that with the click of a button. It is no big situation! It turns out you don’t need to be an accountant or certified math genius to pay your bills.

5. Knowing what shade of lipstick looks good on me

Once again, magazines really got into my brain as a child.

Growing up, I thought that every woman on planet earth had a signature lipstick, and lipstick color, that they would wear daily. So as a kid, I would study different shades of red on magazine pages and think to myself, hmm, if I’m pale, I shouldn’t go with a deep red, I should do a light-toned, neutral red.

I am now 29, and I typically wear Aquaphor. Lipstick actually makes my face look a bit weird and I think I only own like, two tubes, that I wear when I’m drinking with girlfriends and getting ready to go out and telling myself that maybe the lipstick will look good this time….

6. Stopping, dropping, and of course…rolling

I was prepped and strapped for a fire when I was a kid. I feel like 10% of my schooling was learning the alphabet, and 90% of it was instructions for what to do if there was a fire.

You stop, drop and roll! And if you think there’s a fire, you touch the doorknob with the back of your hand to see if it’s hot! And if you can, you get a rope ladder to hang out your window and that’s how you escape the house!

Please tell me I’m not alone in this? I truly thought for years that I was absolutely, 100% going to encounter a house fire. And also quicksand. Maybe the quicksand started the fire, or something. And the only way to escape was to throw the perfect shade of lipstick at the fire hahaha.

So, did we have similar childhoods? Or did I go to a weird school and encounter too many magazines during my formative years? I do think it’s interesting how at the very least - the idea of quicksand and house fires really scared the pants off of us as kids.

Let me know which things you thought would be important later in life, and if anyone has encountered quicksand…I’m dying to ask you some questions.

Until the next one,
S

6 things I thought would be super important in life