I had a revelation not too long ago as I attended a Giants  game: being old sucks. There is no nice way to put it; life as a young adult is nothing what is hyped up to be, and I am considering taking Ponce de Léon’s path in order to recapture my youth.

I started thinking about this a while back when I turned 18 and everyone told me the same thing: “Now you can buy cigarettes, porn and lottery tickets!” To all you 17-year-olds and below,  this isn’t quite as good as it sounds: a. I don’t smoke cigarettes, b. Every male has figured out how to get porn by the age of nine (begins with a “g” and ends with an “oogle”) and c. I actually enjoy playing scratchers. That actually was a nice addition to my life.

The point is that while I am now able to waste all my money trying to win last Tuesday’s Mega Million Jackpot of 85 million dollars, I also have a few undesirable things added to my worries. Like being able to be tried as an adult in court and given the death penalty (already could have been given it in Texas) and the ability to play the least fun lottery known as the draft. If you put the two sides on a scale, it would be like pitting the Art History AP book against a feather.

Back to the Giants game I mentioned 200 words ago. After the game, my friends and I rushed to the opposing team’s dugout to get future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.’s autograph only to have him already in the showers. (For the record, we chased him through the stadium later and out to the player’s parking lot and even banged on his cab as it stopped at a red light. Did he sign anything? No, screw him.)

While we waited by the dugout for a few minutes, a couple of kids half our age walked over to the rail and were given game-used balls. I called out that I wanted one and instead I got a death glare from the stadium personnel. The reason I was passed over wasn’t because I was being obnoxious or ad just tried to steal one of the younger kids’ balls (which Griffey would have signed). No, it was because I was too old to enjoy the simple pleasures in life like a game-used ball.

I remember back in the day when I was a young lad, I was given cotton candy by a complete stranger at a Stanford football game. The reason I was given free cotton candy was that “every kid deserves a cotton candy.” I may not be a kid anymore, but I still think I deserve my cotton candy.