During a recent editorial department meeting our star goddess reporter Ana Karen Perez Guzman described her idea for a series of columns about becoming an adult. The first installment was last week. It was a very fine column about protecting yourself from burglary and what to do if it happens.

After listening to Ana, I decided this is a subject for Mr. Never Grouchy Grown-up Guy.

I spent hours and hours and hours before I found just the right words to help mold our youth and give them hope and proper posture.

• No. 1

To get a young woman or male knothead started on the right road to grown-up happyville, it is critical they learn to drink cheap black coffee with no wienie creamers that taste like you should be wearing a teal scarf and flip flops. When I say black coffee I mean a three-pound can that cost no more than six bucks with a brand name like “Stomach Pain” – severe or house blend. If you must pour something in your coffee, use buttermilk. It tastes yummy and often floats on the top – added entertainment when you’re looking for adult friskiness.

• No. 2

Another way to find your inner adultyness is to immediately stop expecting to ever have fun again. There are no tricks of the trade for this one. The only known cure for bad whoopee is to turn on the TV and watch a commercial that is selling a vacation to a sunny island surrounded by blue water and rich people with overly bleached teeth. Now imagine the bills you will be paying after you return from dancing with rich people and their teeth, and how zippy it will be living in mom’s backyard in a green tent for the rest of your life.

I may consider running seminars someday called, “Conquering your fear of no fun forever – embrace your boring oneness.”

No. 3

Enjoy all the sweet, syrupy, fat foods prior to passing the “Abandon all hope” sign on the adult highway. As the years go by, more and more foods that taste ambrosial will be checked off the your “to enjoy” list. (In fact if you have a “to enjoy list” you’re grounded for a long time.) As your life spirals down you will replace the caramel ice cream layer cake, bacon-mushroom triple cheese burger and cream cheese brownie bomb with healthy snacks that would make a hungry aardvark do the arf-arf. The uplifting news is the wholesome offerings will make you live longer, so you can enjoy ever increasing amounts of morally appropriate food.

No. 4

Speaking of knotheads. There are two facts to know about males. They learn to walk upright appearing like they know something, and they are all still in the third grade. To prove my point watch a Seahawks game with a bunch men. If the Hawks lose expect a week of moping, pouting and very long sighs for sympathy.

We are all tall third graders hoping to graduate.

No. 5

There will come a day when you will hear your child refer to your high school years as the “olden days.” The olden days when you were so cool… it was just yesterday. That is when you will know it has happened. You have finally become a card-carrying adult.

My advice for you when that day arrives is to listen to a song by some old guy named Dylan – “Forever Young.”