"If I clean this toilet I can have a beer tonight."

I’m constantly amazed at how challenging it is to be an adult. It’s like everyday there’s something new I have to do that won’t get taken care of unless I actually take the initiative to do it.

I’ve basically had to turn into a parent for myself in order to get anything done. I remind myself to do things repeatably even though I heard myself the first time, I nag myself incessantly to do gross chores around the apartment, and I even discipline and reward myself with a behavior chart I keep on the fridge. Five gold stars mean I can go out for happy hour on Friday.

I’ve recently put myself in time-out (spent all day on the couch watching whatever Sandra Bullock movie TBS plays) for breaking curfew and I’ve lectured myself about not taking vitamins when I started sniffling last week. I’m at the point that I think my actual mother feels left out when she calls because I’ve already covered her territory. She calls expecting an opportunity to nurture (tell me what to do) and instead she gets a co-parent complaining about misbehavior and paying the cable bill on time.

While I’ve enjoyed being a parent to myself and ending each night with a warm glass of milk and Goodnight Moon, I’ve started to wonder when I will transition from being a faux-adult to being a real one.

Will I ever take care of myself just because I want to or will I spend the rest of my life threatening myself to either eat broccoli or suffer the consequences (No Hulu in bed)? Does scrubbing the toilet ever get exciting or will it always be something I’ll do while gagging and whining? When will I feel compelled to change my sheets on a regular basis and not just when I spill cereal on them?

I don’t know. Hopefully not soon because I’m really enjoying earning gold stars on my discipline chart (finished all my work for today = 2.5 stars). And I’m really looking forward to treating myself on mother’s day – after all being a parent is hard work and it will be nice to get a day dedicated to myself.

Yes, there are many up-sides to this little trip: we get a break from all the homework, we get to eat something other then cafeteria mystery meat for a change, and we get to curl up with Scruffy on the couch for a couple of days.

But with the comfort of being home comes a few downers as well. And I’m not talking about being woken up at 9am on a Saturday or having to empty the dishwasher. It’s those little comments from mom and dad that really get under your skin. And no matter how hard you try to be nice, you just can’t help but snap, say something mean and beeline to the car/airport (clean clothes and leftovers in hand, obvi) as soon as humanly possible.

Here are a few of the worst offenders:

“Honey, your pants look a little tight”
Yes mom, I realize that drinking 5 days out of the week and eating delivery pizza has done a number on my waistline. Am I happy about it? No. Do I know it is there? Yes. Is it helping that you pinch the muffin top and poke the underarm flab? Absolutely not!

“Have you found a nice boy yet?”
If by “nice” you mean “a tall pre-med student who considers hanging out in the library fun,” then no, dad, I have not found your ideal son-in-law quite yet. But I have hooked up with a couple of the guys on the football team who can barely form coherent sentences but have 8-pack stomachs you can bounce a quarter off of, if that counts for anything.

“Are you getting straight A’s?”
Don’t you think if I was acing every test I probably would’ve mentioned it to you in our weekly phone calls? It’s the fact that I am failing Bio miserably and barely ever making it to the 9 a.m. calculus lectures that has kept this topic out of our discussions. Maybe next semester. Keep praying, I know I am.

“We’re not just your ATM, you know.”
Ok, so they’re right about that, but between classes and everything else I’m doing on campus (napping?), I just don’t have the time to call and chat every day. Hell, they should be happy they hear from me at all.

“We saw your pictures on Facebook, you look like you are having…a lot of fun”
Get off Facebook! This is not a tool to stalk your children and befriend your old high school classmates and catch up. This is my website where I stalk my ex boyfriends and post sloppy pictures of myself, neither of which I would like you to monitor.

“Why can’t I see your Facebook pictures anymore?”
I have no idea, mom; Facebook must be crashing. It’s been having a lot of issues you know, giving people viruses and stuff. You should really terminate your account.

“We are still trying to plan that visit”
Oh goody. I can cancel all the party invitations for a 4-day weekend filled with quiet dinners, giving campus tours, and being yelled at for living in a pigsty. Wonderful. I’ll just pray you don’t find the handle of rum under my bed, or the textbooks still in their wrapping in the desk drawer.

What else do your parents pester you with over break that drives you crazy?

Your interview with Megan Fox had me admiring her acting talents (who could forget her as whats-her-name in that one Lindsay Lohan movie ), and getting annoyed with her while she pretended not to know she’s hot. I was beginning to worry about finding material for this month’s Cosmo Says! Then I turned to page 72, so that relationship expert Matt Titus could explain to me “Why He Calls You a Nag When You’re Not.”

Cosmo Says: Because his Mom told him what to do for 18 years, every man will resent doing what their wife or girlfriend asks them to do out of the fear that they will revert back to childhood.

Kari Says: Seriously? I understand that this article is meant to make me LOL (which it did, but I was laughing at it, not with it), however I tend to disagree. It’s one thing when Cosmo’s ladies grossly over-generalize the male population, but dude—you’re throwing your own kind under the bus here! Scientific polling of actual guys (a frat-tastic sophomore and two first year med students) shows that this is BS: guys don’t have a problem doing favors for their s.o.’s (and it doesn’t remind them of their adolescent chore-list).

Cosmo Says: Men know that calling you a nag is hitting way below the belt and will send you straight into mid-life crisis mode.

Kari Says: I don’t care if you call me a nag, but you’re going to keep hearing me repeat myself until you actually do the simple task that I asked of you. Come on, you have to already know this!

Cosmo Says: Yep Kari, you were right. Men totes know “that [they] make your repeated requests necessary in the first place.” Unfortunately, they are physically capable of listening to only 20% of what you say.

Kari Says: Again with the demeaning of the male population. My boyfriend happens to be very attentive and perfectly able to not only listen to 100% of what I say, but comprehend and react to it. Amazing! Please stop portraying all men as semi-developmentally challenged cavemen who respond only to ESPN.

Cosmo Says: Obvi, men can only operate on 24-hour schedules and anything outside of that timeline seems “light years away.” If you really need to get him to do something, compliment his pecs before you ask.

Kari Says: A little flattery never hurts, but a better tactic “to make your request stick in your man’s head” is to write him a Post-it note. If you still feel the need to comment on your boyfriend’s buff-ness, you can emphasize the compliment by patting them and simultaneously slapping your sticky note on there. Much easier to remember.

Cosmo Says: If all else fails and he still calls you a nag, do it yourself.

Kari Says: I’m all for DIY, but if I asked my boyfriend to do something for me, it was for a reason! If it got to the point where he spent so long ignoring my request that I had to start crossing things off his to-do list for him, the end result would definitely be more nagging.

Thank you, Cosmo, for yet another enlightening look into the male mind. I can only imagine what the divorce rate would be in this country if we all heeded this advice.

Yeah right.

The only thing that really got me moving out of bed was a little hair of the dog that bit me… in the form of an Easter Egg filled with Starbursts that I found under my pillow. Thanks, roomie!

Anyways, a long weekend at home with the family was pretty tubular (yeah, I’m trying to bring that word back), but there are just some things about going home that are less than rad (yup, trying to bring that one back, too!):

The Great: Getting away from campus for a weekend to spend time with the family.
The Blah: Being woken up by my parents at 9am on a Saturday so I could come downstairs and “spend time with them!!”

The Great: Mom’s cooking.
The Blah: Being unable to control myself around mom’s cooking and eating until I threw up a little in my mouth. Then going back for more.

The Great: Family traditions – egg hunt, Easter brunch, Easter family photo
The Blah: Dealing with the family’s constant nagging about finding a boyfriend, losing a few pounds to find a boyfriend and finding a “damn boyfriend already!”

The Great: Hitting up the Easter sales at the mall with my mom.
The Blah: Getting to the register and hearing, “You have a part-time job…you can pay for this stuff now.”

The Great: Returning to campus with a bag of leftovers
The Blah: My inability to control myself around mom’s cooking (yet again) and eating them all….late night… in one sitting.