Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never by Lancaster, Jen (e books free to read .txt) 📕

I stop by the front desk to make sure that the whole room is taken care of because I’m not sticking Joanna with the bill, especially as I’m bailing in the middle of the night. Also, I need the valet to bring my car.

Funny thing about hotels that I’ve found out over five years of early-flight-based departures: no matter how fine the establishment, ninety-nine percent of women sneaking out in the wee hours of the morning are prostitutes.

So as I stand there making arrangements in my sweater set, holding my big pink and green toile overnight bag, makeup off, hair in a ponytail, the desk clerks have no choice but to imagine that I am the oldest, fattest call girl they’ve ever seen.

Then when I tell them the make and model of car that I’m collecting, they stand there with their mouths agape, faces set in expressions that range from horror to admiration, wondering exactly what kind of freaky shit I might perform.

As I head downstairs to meet the valet, I swear I hear one of the girls calling, “Teach me!”

This? Right here? Is why people hesitate to embrace new hobbies.

My latest pastime develops so organically that I don’t even realize it’s anything but a chore at first.

Our house has an unholy amount of built-in bookshelves. Mind you, we own many, many books, at least according to the disgruntled men who had to move them all. Considering I’ve been reading for almost forty years [And have a demonstrated dislike for throwing things away.] I can fill ten bookcases. This works out nicely seeing how I own ten bookcases. I was faced with the dilemma of stocking a bunch of naked built-ins because if I placed my collection on the shelves, I’d be left with a bunch of empty bookcases and that would make my house look like it were having a going-out-of-business sale.

Whenever I peruse catalogs, I’m most intrigued by the items that aren’t for sale. Like when Pottery Barn displays a lovely bedroom set, covered in a crisp linen duvet and piled up with pillows—inevitably I want the battered silver pitcher that’s filled with hydrangeas in the corner of the shot. That’s why mass-produced furniture always looks better in print than it does in my living room; even if I were to buy everything on the page, [See: Ambien Binge, Shopping on an] I’m still missing the crucial elements that give the catalog rooms soul.

I keep an eye peeled for estate sales because I heard they can be an amazing resource for cheap vintage finds but I hadn’t seen any until one day when Joanna and I spot a sign after being out for lunch.

“Look! Estate sale! Are you game?” I ask from the passenger seat of her station wagon.

“Sure! Get your phone out so we can practice navigating! We’ll both Google the address and we’ll see who gets it first!” Joanna and I are convinced that we’d kick ass as the College Roommates team on the Amazing Race, for no reason other than sheer delusion, particularly since I hate to run, solve puzzles, or for that matter, travel.

Also? Not a team player.

Even though I’ve yet to see a single challenge in which I’d not fail spectacularly, the dream remains alive.

We both dig out our iPhones. Her navigation application isn’t working because she can’t get a cell signal and I don’t have any apps [Don’t get me started on the app thing.] and Google maps is way too small for me to decipher without reading glasses.

After five minutes of swearing and cursing the name of AT&T, Joanna notices that the estate sale sign not only listed an address, but also is in the shape of a giant arrow, pointing in the direction of the sale.

You know those assholes who are always cut the first challenge, five minutes after the race starts? Yeah. Says Phil Keoghan, “I’m sorry, College Roommates, you have been eliminated from the race.”

Anyway, the sale items are all way too modern for my tastes, so Joanna suggests I hit some consignment stores to find vintage pieces. We find a local charity shop, I discover a massive footed Waterford trifle bowl for fifteen dollars and thus, a hobby is born.

At first, I’m all about snapping up pieces to fill my empty built-in china cabinets. Although I’ve been blessed with eight thousand (unmatched) wineglasses, I’ve never owned plates that weren’t basic white diner dishware. We needed money for rent when we were married, not flatware, so we never registered for anything made of crystal or covered in silver plate or designed for the single purpose of holding hot gravy. Plus, we figured we’d be bored of whatever we picked out a few years later.

Fortunately, everyone eventually tires of their fancy, unused, dust-gathering gravy boats and when they do, they take them to the consignment store. I spend weeks scoping out and scooping up beautiful porcelain dinner sets and heavy crystal bowls, paying pennies on the dollar of their original cost.

My hobby morphs into an obsession purely by accident. I find a beautiful silver serving bowl and it isn’t until I use it the first time that I notice the engraving. Turns out I didn’t nab a fancy five-dollar potato chip holder at all—I purchased a stupid trophy. I still use it to hold party snacks, but I turn the writing side around and butt it up to the wall so no one sees what it really is.

After resenting my purchase for a while, it occurs to me that having someone else’s 1967 Division IV Hiring Award is kind of kitschy. Once filled with potpourri and placed on an empty shelf, it actually seems intentional and that’s when I realize this is the exact kind of classy shit Pottery Barn uses to make their catalog pages so crave-worthy.

I begin a quest, expanding my search to antiques stores where I unearth a Bakelite beagle trophy from a 1959 dog show in the