Yes, that was me. Your future. Driving past you tonight in a minivan, with the far backseat light on because the kids won't stop messing with it.

Yes, I was picking up dinner for myself at 9pm. Not because I'm cool like you and go out to dinner at 9pm. But because it was the first time all day I'd had a minute to find any anything to eat.

Yes, I had the minivan sunroof open and I was listening to Kelis sing about her milkshake.

Yes, I was singing along.

I saw you staring at me. I saw the look of abject horror on your faces. Your pastel, too tight button up shirts wrinkled at the sight of me. Your retarded breezy, messy, too long, bangy haircuts sneered at my practical barrettes.

Yes, I saw all of that.

But you know what?

It totally doesn't matter. Because I am your future. That's right. Your future. For real.

One day, you too, will be driving a minivan out for dinner at 9pm. And you will be so tired you'll be wishing you could just go to bed starving. But you'll be happy to be out of the house, away from shouting kids and suction machines (well, maybe you won't have to deal with the suction machine part – I'll give you that). You'll be excited to sing along to something that isn't kid music, even if the kid music is by Mudhoney or They Might Be Giants, or Arcade Fire, or whatever cool band you can rustle up to add a soundtrack to your drives around town with the tiny people in your life.

You will have your iphone set on shuffle (yes, you will still have an iPhone, but mostly so you can sync calendars with your spouse and text your BFF from doctor waiting rooms). And when your spendy, vaguely justifiable mobile device finds some Marilyn Manson, you'll rejoice in the Beautiful People lyrics and wonder why that song never made its way onto the show Weeds. Because you, too, live in a little box made of ticky tacky, and you realize that maybe Marilyn Manson is singing about Agrestic, which means he's singing about your neighborhood, too.

Yep. This is your future.

But don't fear it, Adorable Hipster. Just because your house is made of ticky tacky doesn't mean it's awful. It's actually pretty nice. The ticky tacky is an interesting melange of cool stuff you've collected over the years, toys, kid drawings, candy pieces and receipts. No longer do you live in the Adorable Hipster world of sterile furnishings, expensive beer no one is brave enough to admit sucks compared to a Lone Star, clothes that give you yeast infections, and random bouts of loneliness. Nope. Your life is full of color and mess.

Sometimes that color and mess bleeds out into the real world and you drive by your past and it is horrified by you. But you don't care because the dreaded minivan has a pretty good sound system, 16,000 cupholders, and doesn't require premium gas like your old convertible.

So don't sneer when your future drives by. It's bad karma.

And believe me. You don't want bad karma. Especially when it comes to your future.

Former Adorable Hipsters with bad karma end up being the people in charge of selling frito pies at their kids' elementary school carnival. So watch out.

Those people have to stuff their retarded hair into hairnets.

Yes, we laugh at them. From our minivans. As we drive away. Back to our houses made of ticky tacky. Listening to Sexyback. And singing merrily all the way.

Sincerely,
Kari
aka: Your future