Everything You Should Have Done By The Time You’re 30, According To The Shocker

By Shocker Staff

We at the Shocker were once young and dumb, like you, dear reader. But now, life has knocked us down and we’ve picked ourselves back up and gotten wiser. We are sharing our knowledge born from experience with the new generation.

Here are all things you should have done by the time you’re 30.

By age 30 you should:

Have held on to a pair of pants that you knew you would never be able to wear again for far longer than was reasonable

Have systematically ranked every cameo in the Great Muppet Caper

Have gotten kicked out of a band right before they make it big

Have landed a kickflip

Make friends with a couple

Be writing group articles about all the things you should have done by the time you’re 30

Be an expert in the data software Tableau

Have started dating one of your couple friends after their breakup

Be at least age 40

Be a lizard

Have awkwardly texted your other couple friend to tell them you’re now dating their ex

Have hunted down and killed a Supreme Court justice

Have fucked the demon king Asmodeus at least once

Have taken a screenshot of your text conversation with your friend about dating their ex

Be a faithful reader of Katie Heindl’s periodic column NBA Summer Vacation Watch

Be at least 8 feet tall because you start shrinking in your 30s and if you don’t have a good head start, you’ll shrink away to nothing by age 50

Have accidentally sent that screenshot to that same friend several days later out of the blue

Have forgotten how to play a musical instrument because you weren’t that good at it anyway and quitting something because it’s too hard builds character

Have at least 3 exes that you never really dated dated but they’re still your ex

Be living with a curse from an ancient artifact that you messed with in a fit of hubris and ambition (not a metaphor for having a STD)

Have an STD

Be the namesake of a new STD

Develop strong opinions on Jamie O’Grady and make it your goal to steal his life-force by age 32

Have gotten really good at Tetris

Realize that boring ass French roast coffee is the way to go

Have had sex between two and six times

Have eaten ass

Have asked a farmer if you can marry his daughter

Have STOPPED opening ancient sarcophagi and unleashing curses upon the world

Have realized which length of shorts best suits you

Have gotten resentful about a Pitchfork review

Keep something else alive, even if it’s just good gut bacteria

Have developed a few working theories about what John of Patmos was really getting at

Have stared at yourself in a mirror until you don’t even recognize your own face anymore

Have realized that your life is, in fact, just like a movie but it’s a really boring movie

Felt exquisite envy

Have voted for Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren because he’s got a juicy, big dick and she does not have a juicy, big dick

Have kidnapped David Roth and forced him to listen to Social Distortion’s entire discography

Have been embarrassed when a TSA worker pulled your TLC Tugger from your bag in front of everyone, and then overjoyed when hundreds of others pulled out their own Tuggers in a Spartacus moment of solidarity

Learn how to inflate your ties from a crypto YouTuber who’s not your dad

Have peered into the cold, crystalline waters of an ancient lake and had a moment of pure, transcendent understanding of the nature of the universe and your place in it but before you can commit it to memory, you burp and shatter the whole vibe

Have then swam in the lake and counted the day as a win

Regularly say the word “horny” around your father-in-law at dinner

Have made a really, really bad sandwich and eaten it anyway because you didn’t have any other food in the house

Write an article about the Dark Carnival for Long Reads

Have taken a train and eaten it piece by piece… after you just derailed it with your penis

Drown a NYC rat that came out of your toilet in a bucket (I haven’t done this, but my friend has)

Drown your friend that killed an innocent rat

Give your friend and that rat a Viking funeral in the East River

Feel pretty credible giving directions

Become an expert on ghost towns

Make someone send a fish in the mail for you

Have bought Donald Fagen’s the Nightfly on vinyl

Have consumed some really bad porn

Have consumed some really good corn

Have seen that corn in your poop

Have found a dead body in the woods, told nobody about it, monitored the local news for weeks in hopes of discovering more about the body, found no mention of it, returned to where the body had been, found nothing there, and begun to wonder if you imagined the whole thing

Have warmed up on Billy Joel

Have realized missing deadlines doesn’t matter

Have gotten drunk

Have gotten crunk

Have gotten stunk

Have classified every pornstar that ever existed into a Hogwarts House

Have woken up sucking on a lemon

Have woken up sucking on a hot dog

Have sucked on a chili dog outside the Tastee Freez

Have measured your dick with the D.A.R.E. ruler they gave you in grade school

Yearn constantly

Be a grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals

Healed your inner child. 30 is your deadline, after that you’re stuck with whatever inner child you’ve got

Have asked, “Why?” and really, really meant it

Have asked your elders for the juiciest family secrets

Have gone to therapy with the help of our sponsor BetterHelp which is definitely not selling your data #ad

Have learned enough basic information security to withstand cursory surveillance from the police state

Have gotten back into some bad music you loved in high school, first as a nostalgic/ironic thing before slowly realizing that your interest is sincere, leaving you uncertain about your previously held notions of what makes art good or bad

Have shown your ass in public (figuratively)

Have shown your ass in public (literally)

Have shown your ass in public (spiritually)

Have urinated on the grave of a historical figure you revile

Have done the “High Hopes” dance on the grave of a historical figure you revile

Have become a reviled historical figure whose grave is desecrated in various, whimsical ways

Have wiped back to front, just to feel something

Have punk’d Captain Ahab

Have hunted Ashton Kutcher with a harpoon

Have had most of your friends move to Portland

Have lost your sense of possibility, abandoned the notion that a future exists, realized that you are not actually going to figure it out and won’t ever become anything with any consistency or form, and receded completely into yourself or rather your lack of self, even when in public

Have bought a really saucy new hat

Have gotten yelled at for wearing scrubs to work

Have gotten yelled at for not wearing scrubs to work

Have driven 30 hours straight around the country without sleeping, then stopped to watch the moon rise over a cornfield

Have at least two regrets, one that you later come to realize actually turned out for the best and one that will genuinely haunt you for years

Have ranked your best friends from “easiest to hunt and kill” to “least easiest to hunt and kill”