I heard Howard Stern comment once, "I don't feel like a grown-up. Do you? I'm 48, and my kids seem to think I know something special." Not that Howard Stern is the end-all be-all of mature adults. Still, he definitely qualifies as an adult, if by nothing other than age. When I was eight, much like Howard Stern's kids, I thought that 20-year-olds were really experienced, knowledgeable, grown-up people. Forty-year-olds were ancient. But now I live in a world where Britney Spears is younger than I am. Almost six months younger.

When you're younger, anyone who is successful and older somehow had more time than you did, more opportunities, some special knowledge. But this is no longer the case. Twenty-year-olds are still kids to me. They do all the same stupid stuff that I do. But every once in a while I'll catch myself watching 20-year-olds that I don't know personally, on MTV or the like, and I think of how old they look. These are adults. They do the same stuff I do. Therefore, I'm an adult. How odd.

Twenty is a more understated birthday than the others, a quiet affirmation of adulthood, a small indication of the official end of childhood, the last suggestion of innocence.

And to celebrate, you get a vacuum. Hoo ya.