So its your 21st birthday. Big deal. This is it. You can walk into bars with a grin on your face, and I.D. proving that you are in fact legal. You have officially made it to the big leagues. You can now sit down with Mom and Pop whilst enjoying an ice cold beer (alcoholic lemonade or hard cider work too). With all these new opportunities, it would seem that you are officially mature. But turning 21 isn't nearly enough to prove you’re becoming an adult. After all, age is just a number. The proof is in the pudding.

You’ve had months of planning this perfect day. Months of searching for that perfect romper. You’re ready. You decide to have friends over, because it’s your birthday and you can party if you want to. You invite two girls over to get ready with you to set the birthday mood (and you need help tying the back of that romper). You jump in that romper and spend two hours treating your face like the Mona Lisa that it is. You start the night off with a bang because your fake eyelashes that you spent 20 minutes perfecting look great and actually kind of real.

Without even noticing, you’ve passed your first test. Maturity calls for preparedness. You will cheer for Florida before you say those hours of studying countless youtube videos on how to put those suckers on, did not take hard work, constant focus and memorization. You really are growing up.

So as any regular newly 21-year-old would do, you have to go celebrate with eight to ten of your closest friends with margaritas and Mexican food. This gets a little trickier because you have to choose which restaurant to go to. Pick your poison: Soccer Taco or El Mez. This is no easy decision to take lightly. You make a pros and cons list, go with your gut feeling and send out a group text with the good news.

Congrats! You passed the test with flying colors. (Let’s face it, can you go wrong with either one?)

Right as the night seems to be taking off, you run into a problem. A problem nothing like you’ve dealt with before. A problem that you definitely wouldn’t have solved so rationally if you were still a freshman or did not have to worry about doing your own laundry.

Two of your friends can not make it to dinner and another three won’t be free until 9:30. So either you’re going to dinner really late or with an embarrassingly small birthday crowd. In your younger years, this would have been premium freak out territory. I mean it’s your 21st birthday, does everyone not understand that?

You’ve got two hungry girls getting ready with you and you have got to act quick: you are entertaining after all. You decide to order pizza for you 3 and to just have everyone else come to your house when they’re ready. Perfect plan! Mexican food might be great, but Domino’s is your real weakness. Everyone loves pizza, right?

You order 3 large pizzas, each with a specific set of instructions (you’re allowed to be high maintenance today) and feel accomplished. Crisis averted. High five because you earned it. Little did you know, those two friends that couldn’t make it to dinner? Their plans changed and they can make it now. The other three who were busy until 9:30 p.m.? Yeah, some things cleared up and they're ready for their aforementioned margs.

So here’s the hardest decision of your life. There are two sides to every story and you instantly feel like you’re back in the 5th grade watching Hercules. An angel is on one shoulder and a devil is on the other. Part of you knows that the complicated pizza order has already begun and that if you cancel your order, you’re upsetting a few workers and costing a business money. Another part of you wants queso at all costs. So you’re thinking to yourself, “Is it that awful to cancel a pizza?” After all, it would be a crime not to have a margarita on your 21st, right?

You ask your friends that are getting ready with you, eager for their guidance. One of them sees that you’re struggling with the right thing to do. “It’s your birthday”, she says. “Do what you want.” But is that enough validation to really pull the plug?

Your other friend says, “Cancel the pizza, just keep in mind they have your name on the order and you probably shouldn’t order from them again.”

STOP.

Not order pizza again? Is that a joke? That has to be a joke. Hold the phone. Everyone calm down.

But your friend is right. Your name is on that pizza. And you can bet with all those specifications that they will remember your name if you cancel that order. You picture a cork board at the pizza place with your face and a huge X going straight through it.

And with that: you decide. You’re not gonna cancel those pizzas. You’re gonna eat them and like it and do you know why? Because you sat down and actually thought out the consequences of your actions for once. No birthday is worth a life time of yummy pizza! So great job. Congrats birthday girl! You are officially growing up.

Now all that responsibility calls for a margarita!