By The Onion Staff

Copyright theonion

So one bright morning around nine, sunlight streaming through her mini-blinds, your ol’ pal Jean rolled out of bed (literally!), slurped a mug of piping hot cocoa, and chowed down on the last of the two-day-old day-old cinnamon rolls, took a nice hot shower, and logged on to her sorta trusty PC. The monitor read Tuesday, June 17, 2025. At first, I thought nothing of it. But only because it took a second to sink in. June 17, 2025?!!? My heart nearly sprang up my throat and plopped onto the keyboard! Was my computer telling me that MORE THAN FIVE WHOLE YEARS had passed since I officially declared the 2020s the Decade of Jean? Holy frijoles, where did the time go?

Granted, the decade did not start out well, with that whole Covid thing. But even if we cancel out the first couple years, that still leaves us with three years I can barely account for. Don’t ask me what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks I was doing for most of it! I mostly recollect a blur of working at ¡Basura Fabuloso! (my pal Fulgencio’s booth at the indoor flea market), driving to the indoor flea market, driving away from the flea market, Hallmark Channel movies, getting little pieces of fur on my lips from kissing my kitties, the taste of chocolate (natch!), and small glimpses of Hubby Rick when he wasn’t away working or getting bombed at Tacky’s Tavern. And those cabbage-like plants that decorate the median islands in the parking lot of the Hy-Vee. Don’t ask me why they’re stuck in my memory banks, they just are!

Three practically unaccountable years whooshing by can really get one in a panic if you had things you hoped to accomplish. So to avoid fixating on that, I’m going to use that dirty word—editing!—on my list of goals I wanted to achieve during the Teasdale Twenties. (By the way, for brevity’s sake, I’m not going to go over why I was inspired to name the entire 2020s after myself. I detailed it all in my January 2020 column, and I’m sure you Jeanketeers can easily recall it—if not, you can always consult your Jean scrapbooks!)

Okay, so as I go through my handwritten list (which took me forever to dig up), I think it would be wise to just cut out the goal to get my first car that wasn’t used. Cars are waaaaay expensive now, and I think I’d have to work more than half a century selling mostly empty vintage Avon lip-gloss pins to cover the down payment alone. Plus, I don’t get those electric cars. I just don’t. I would probably electrocute myself trying to gas it up with electricity. Or absent-mindedly leave the charge socket open and spill electricity on the ground and electrocute someone else and get sued to smithereens.

No sir, it’s still me and my limping ol’ Dodge Neon, until it finally conks out, or I do!

And getting a tattoo can be safely crossed off the list. I know, I know, you probably think I’m being a stick-in-the-mud. People have been getting tattoos for years now, it’s no biggie, it’s not like you invest all this deep thought into it anymore—in fact, it’s probably best that you don’t! But there are so many I want to get that I weary myself even thinking about it. A pair of disembodied crossed cartoon eyes? Angel Patrick Swayze gesturing at a pottery wheel with a come-hither look on his face? And sure, teddy bear, goes without saying. But how many? And where? You see where this is going. Nope, I need more time to decide.

And as I go through my list, I realize some of my goals simply aren’t what I want anymore, or they reflect the times in which they were written rather than today’s needs and priorities. Wearing clothes that button again? Nah, done with those. Getting my eyebrows professionally widened? Best leave that one in 2020, Jean. Making more friends? Sheesh, who even does that anymore?

As for my goal to jazz up our apartment’s walls, let’s just say those landlord-mandated, nail-substitute adhesive strips don’t work. Forty bucks down the drain! ’Nuff said! Count that one dead on arrival! Cross it off with a super-thick Sharpie!

Plus—not to shock you, but you’d better hold on to your fannies!—I’ve already achieved one of my biggest goals! Getting a promotion? BIG FAT CHECKAROO! Yep, you’re looking at none other than the assistant manager of ¡Basura Fabuloso! It’s been a few weeks since I just asked Fulgencio if I could call myself that, and before I could explain why, he said, “Sure, girl, call yourself whatever you want.” I was super touched that Fulgencio put so much trust in me! I even had business cards made. The promotion did not come with a raise, as far as I can tell, but who cares? It’s a big burden off my mind to have this goal scored and in the record books!

With those goals out of the way, that leaves daily meditation without falling asleep and finally mending that pile of leggings and sweatpants with blown crotches. Yipes. Okay, maybe I was overambitious with the Decade of Jean thing. (If I had simply made one of my goals “Reject ambition,” my list would have been much, much easier to accomplish!) Besides, there’s nothing that says I can’t make the 2030s the “Decade of the Great Comeback of Jean”! After all, I have over four whole years to rest up for it!