Yesterday was my 29th birthday – or as I like to call it, the last birthday I will ever celebrate. Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. Usually, my birthdays are a huge letdown but I was fortunate to have a lot of things to do yesterday to keep my mind occupied on my last year as a vicenarian.

I got some pretty cool gifts, which I wasn’t expecting at all! Birthday presents are for five-year-olds. My dad got me a $50 gift card to the Patriots Pro Shop which will be used when we head to training camp later next month. My sister got me a Condi Rice biography and a gift card to Barnes & Noble. Perhaps the best gift I got was the most simple and it came from my boyfriend’s mother. She sent me a photo of my boyfriend, circa 1980-something, as a little league pitcher:

And yes, I totally told him I was posting that here. He’s cool with it.

Now that I am the big 2-9, I’ve been thinking about all the life lessons I have learned. Here’s the top 29:

1. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
2. No matter how much you love it in the beginning, you will grow to hate your job.
3. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt.
4. For every one nice person you come across in life, there will be 20 assholes.
5. If you like a guy, he won’t like you but if he likes you, you won’t like him.
6. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry, you will hit traffic.
7. High school really is the best time of your life.
8. Drunk driving is a skill. (disclaimer: I do not condone drunk driving. And yeah, don’t tell me you have never done it. Everyone has. The mere suggestion that you have not driven drunk at least once in your life is a heaping pile of horseshit.)
9. You will spend half of your life looking for your car keys.
10. Washing machines and dryers are giant sock-eaters.
11. Cynicism is the most important survival mechanism.
12. Hobbies are meant to distract you from the meaninglessness of life.
13. We can send a man millions of miles to the moon but we can’t build a car to run reliably after 200,000 miles.
14. If youth is wasted on the young, I say beauty is usually wasted on the stupid.
15. Everyone is shallow.
16. 90% of men are assholes yet 90% of ‘em think they are part of the elusive, not-an-asshole 10%.
17. No one on the planet knows how to drive, except for me of course.
18. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.
19. If you really like a TV show, it will be canceled within a season.
20. If you really like a food item you found at the grocery store, chances are you will never see it there again.
21. REAL family, and I don’t just mean biological, is the only thing in life that matters…
22. …well, that and football.
23. Coffee after 3 p.m. will give you heartburn.
24. At some point in your life, someone will spit in your food. Ignorance is most certainly bliss.
25. New cars are for chumps and rich people.
26. Taxes suck.
27. The single most important skill in life is the art of bullshitting.
28. Patience is a virtue.
29. Typing out long lists are hard.