The clock strikes midnight. Your well-meaning friends bombard you with mass quantities of hard liquor. It’s a Tuesday. Happy birthday. You have now joined the wonderful world of being 21. You wake up on the morning of your birthday, after your middle of the night festivities and question whether you are still drunk from the night before. You attend a lecture class. Everything about criminal law seems funnier when you are secretly sipping vodka and cranberry juice out of your Snapple bottle. The party continues through a hazy dinner followed up by you lighting your hair on fire with your birthday candles. Whoops. You pass out by 10 p.m., never making it out to the much anticipated bar scene. Slowly the excitement of being of age fades. You might be the last of your friends to turn the big 2-1. Your birthday is accompanied by week long partying, and possibly strippers and blow, to set the mood as you burn your fake I.D. But, most likely, not all of your friends are old enough to participate in your 21-year-old bliss yet. You, then, are dragged to an 18+ night at one of Burlington’s oh-so-classy clubs. Suddenly, you are the elderly creeper with a wristband. A fine young thing approaches you on the dance floor. You start chatting. You ask what year they are. You cringe as they say: “I’m a freshman, what year are you?” You angrily hold up your wristband like it’s your AARP membership card and walk away. Your bank account slowly dwindles as your 21st year comes to a close. Your 22nd birthday approaches. You realize, with sadness, that you passed the excitement of getting older. Now, each birthday means you are closer and closer to being that cougar sitting alone at the bar, hitting up the 20-year-old bartender for free whisky sours.