3034: Features of Adulthood

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Features of Adulthood

Title text: I don't dig pit traps and cover them with sticks and a thin layer of leaves nearly as much as I expected; I find a chance to do it barely once a month.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Unexpectedly created by an adult BOT digging pit traps - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is a graph comparing the (mostly) common ideas of adulthood from a young person's perspective with the sad reality of it. The features that are most expected but don't actually come up (quicksand, grappling hooks, crocodiles, and twins switching place) are common tropes in fiction. At the opposite end, some very mundane activities are common but we don't expect them to be important when we're young: deciding what to eat, dealing with weird noises and smells.

It is clear that many of the things that were imagined more likely than they turned out to be are direct references to fictional scenarios on film or TV, especially with a number of action movie tropes, throughout the 'lower-right triangle'. In contrast, the complimentary 'upper-left triangle' has situations that mostly (though not entirely!) seem to not be portrayed in many fictional depictions.

Events

Event	Expected frequency in adulthood	Actual frequency in adulthood	Notes
Which fork you're supposed to use for what	0%	0%	Different types of forks are used to eat different courses of a meal. Usually, cutlery is arranged in a way that makes it easier to understand which is needed. Learning which fork to use may be a lesson in an etiquette school class.
Lit fuses	40%	0%	Explosives with visible lit fuses are commonly seen in movies and TV shows. In reality, explosives are more likely to be remotely detonated or have an unlit or concealed fuse (e.g. grenades). Also, most people don't generally have to deal with explosives anyway.
Shoving a stick in a crocodile's mouth to wedge it open	80%	0%	Placing a vertical stick in a crocodile’s mouth is a popular TV trope to prevent the crocodile from bitting down (usually on the stick placer).
Quicksand	100%	0%	Quicksand is common in adventure fiction, but it's quite rare in real life, and an average person is highly unlikely to encounter quicksand in day to day life.
Car chases	35%	5%	Car chases are frequently seen in movies and TV shows involving police, including real-life police shows, but unless you're a police officer or criminal trying to evade them, you'll probably never be involved in one. One actual car chase that attracted widespread attention was O.J.Simpson's white Ford Bronco, which was shown on TV after he was identified as the prime suspect in his wife's murder.
Grappling hooks	100%	5%	A grappling hook is a metal piece that is attached to a rope. If the person is going up a cliff, the “hook” would be thrown or shot at the top of the cliff and would either snag something, or more commonly, would wrap around something like a tree then hook onto itself, thus securing a way up the cliff.
People offering free drugs	30%	10%	Typically refers to illicit drugs. The expectation is that a drug pusher will offer you free samples to get you addicted, then start charging expensive prices.
Parachutes	80%	10%	A large piece of fabric that is tied to you in order to slow a very high fall.
Barrels	95%	10%	Wooden or metal storage implements, frequently used as concealment, improvised weapons and (sometimes explosive) obstacles in popular media.
Middle names	15%	20%	A second (or occasionally also third or more) given name, common in some traditions. Sometimes used specifically to honor someone (perhaps the same first name of a grandparent or loved one, occasionally such a person's surname). It can be used as further identification, if one has a common first and last name. In some families, the first name may be traditionally shared with the appropriate parent (and the grandparent, their parent) and reference by the middle name(s), alone, may be more useful to distinguish the person being addressed from within a family situation. In later life, a person may drop the use of middle names (or, conversely, adopt only them as the name they are known by) and the unwieldy complete set of names becomes less common, as they may be considered unprofessional and unnecessary. Authors and politicians may most obviously buck this trend, as they have to develop an identity far beyond their immediate personal and professional circles, and perhaps need to be more unambiguously individual and free of confusion from others of similar named as "Firstname Surname", but this might also just reflect that the practice of more formally complete names is a tradition that is being dropped from those of Randall (Patrick) Munroe's generation, leaving only the generations before (most represented, in the public eye, by elder statesmen and well-read writers) still using them in the way they always did.
Food fights	50%	20%
Twins switching places	90%	20%	Actual frequency of more than 0% might be a joke, or maybe due to having twins as friends, colleagues or relatives.
Flat tires	10%	25%
Briefcases	70%	25%	Frequently used to carry documents and other small office equipment. Often portrayed as a means to carry a large amount of cash or conceal a firearm. The popularity of briefcases has been declining after the 1980s so it's possible that Randall observed grown-ups using briefcases when he was a kid and assumed he would too, only for them to go out of fashion.
Martial arts	95%	25%
Water damage	0%	25%
Backpacks			Backpacks of various sizes are a versatile means to carry items. They are almost as popular in real life as in fiction, though the contents may be somewhat different.
My academic records	95%	30%	A child's life revolves around school: it's where they spend a large fraction of their waking hours, classmates make up most of their social circle, class schedules dictate when and how they spend their free time, and parental figures often punish/reward children based on their academic performance. The child may assume that school will continue to be an ever-present all-ecompassing feature of their future life, with their grades constituting a "permanent record" that will follow them into adulthood. In reality, academic records aren't anywhere near that important. Some entry-level jobs may consider a candidate's past grades, but they're a tertiary concern after job interviews and professional references. By the time a person reaches their late 20s, academic records become irrelevant and are supplanted by the person's professional résumé.
Adhesives	15%	50%	Adhesives such as glue, tape and epoxy resin are used to bond items together, typically for use in arts and crafts. They also have widespread industrial applications.
Board games			Board games of various kinds (such as chess, checkers, Monopoly, Ludo, Risk, Snakes & Ladders, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit or Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs) were often a staple for family home entertainment, in the past. Although they still may exist, possibly at the back of a cupboard, the ubiquitous nature of video games and other entertainments may have suppressed the opportunity for the adults and/or children to unbox them to while away the hours during a rainy afternoon or provide fireside entertainment for the family and its guests between the evening meal and supper. Ironically, many classic boardgames have often been converted to video games, either as faithful reproductions (that may even enable online play and remote participation) or just as a thematic flavor as applied to a largely solo screenbound distraction.
Tying knots			There are many knots to tie, each with distinct purposes. May also refer to "tying the knot", an expression for marriage.
Cable management	0%	50%	Cable management is an annoying but often required task for most adults. Cable management is the act of tidying up the cables in and around a computer or other device.
Lasers	90%	50%	Lasers are common in sci-fi and spy stories, but are much less commonly interacted with in real life. However, in real life, they are a very interesting technology and equipment, and something Randall is interested in, so he is likely to interact with lasers much more than the average person.
Dangerous driving situations
Pizza			Often thought of as takeout or delivery food. A favorite of Spider-Man and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Star Wars
Cool toys
Weather forecasts
Batteries
Power tools
Video games			Often thought of as a childish pastime, adults frequently play video games.
Figuring out what to have for dinner
HVAC issues	20%	80%	HVAC is an acronym that stands for 'heating, ventilation and air conditioning.' If one owns a home, problems with the heater or air conditioner can quickly make your home very uncomfortable (too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer) and becomes something you have to deal with right away. Thus HVAC issues become a much more frequent part of an adult's life than a child may assume.
Cooking
Secret passwords			Traditionally, in fiction, secret passwords have been portrayed as used for purposes such as espionage and admission to secret clubs. Nowadays many people do use secret passwords on a daily basis, but for more mundane purposes such as accessing websites and voicemail.
Laundry
Taxes	100%	85%	One of two inevitable things in life, the other being death[citation needed]
Customer service
Shopping	100%	90%
Unexplained smells or noises		100%
Pocket radio communicators		100%	Examples include cell phones, pagers and walkie-talkies.
Bills	90%	100%	Most households have to contend with electricity, water and telecommunication service bills.
Digging pit traps (title text)			Inside the Star Destroyer in 1608: Hoverboard we see Cueball cover a pit trap with leaves, so this is something Randall actually thinks about sometimes!

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Shown is a scatter plot, with arrowed labels on the axes:]

Y axis label: How often it comes up in my adult life

X axis label: How often I expected it to come up in my adult life

[First row of items (comes up very often, from least to most expected):]

Unexplained smells or noises; customer service; pocket radio communicators; bills; shopping

[Items row by row from the second row onwards:]

Figuring out what to have for dinner; HVAC issues; secret passwords; laundry; cooking; taxes

Weather forecasts; batteries; video games; power tools

Cable management; dangerous driving situations; pizza; Star Wars; lasers; cool toys

Adhesives; board games; tying knots

Water damage; backpacks; my academic record

Flat tires; briefcases; martial arts

Middle names; people offering free drugs; food fights; parachutes; twins switching places; barrels

[Last row (comes up very rarely, from least to most expected):]

Which fork you're supposed to use for what; car chases; lit fuses; shoving a stick in a crocodile's mouth to wedge it open; grappling hooks; quicksand

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Discussion

No comments yet? Probably everyone's still considering the filling in of the table. As for me, I just put a load of words in about the middle name(s), but perhaps it drifts and could be cut back a lot. However, I think we do know a lot of middle names of people, especially politicians. Or at least use their middle initials (like with "John F[itzgerald]. Kennedy"), even if we don't use their full names (like with "Harry S. Truman"... :p ). Not that I've had much experience with middle names. Don't have one myself. Knew a couple of people at school who would admit to having them (one had "Colin", the other had "Douglas"), which weren't really names given to people our age and location, so they must have been grandparental honorifics (though I'm not sure the names were right for two generations back, either... never enquired further, but maybe they were being traditional middle names, inherited but never really used). To my knowledge, neither the "Colin" nor the "Douglas" ever went on to use those in post-school life, but at least one of them also changed from their first name as their habitual name to be known by, and likely they prefered to go for something altogether new. 172.69.195.27 03:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

In Denmark middle names are common, and Kynde is actually my middle name... Many people use their second name like their first, which can be confusing in work places where the e-mail is auto generated from full name, so no one can find Nicolai, because his first name is Christian... which he never uses. Have more than one of those here at my job. --Kynde (talk) 11:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

In Denmark middle names are necessary. Otherwise we'd be lost in a vast sea of Jens Jensen, Hans Hansen and Niels Nielsen. Min farfar Niels Peder Nielsen, hedde altid Peder, ikke Niels. 108.162.238.139 (talk) 13:58, 7 January 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Unexplained smells or noises: I'm trying to figure out what he means by this. I can't say that this comes up often in my adult life. Am I just deaf and anosmic (I don't think so)? Is Randall worried about gas leaks or his house creaking and falling down? What could he be referencing? Mtcv (talk) 09:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I often smell something that others cannot or do not. So I'm completely at par with Randall here. Just now my office has a damp smell, after new people moved their things into my office replacing earlier office mates (four in the room). I'm sure it is some of their stuff that smells, but since the hole room is permeated with the smell, it has not been possible for me to find out what could cause the smell. But have tried this many times, for instance when someone leaves a citrus fruit to rot. Some people just cannot smell the fruit whereas I'm getting an instant headache from it. Also in my office, the guy with the rotten fruit, actually destroying his backpack, could not smell it, whereas other people could smell it down the hall. But inside the office it was hard to pinpoint the source as for those that could smell it is was all over the room. I could go on... --Kynde (talk) 11:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

"In later life, a person may drop the use of middle names (or, conversely, adopt only them as the name they are known by) and the unwieldy complete set of names becomes less common, as they may be considered unprofessional and unnecessary." -- What? Who says middle names may be considered unprofessional? Never heard of this before. --172.70.55.140 14:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Just popping in to explain where this comic came from. It's an adaptation of an old John Mulaney bit that makes the rounds every so often on social media unattributed. (Example: Tom Morello stealing the bit over ten years ago on what was then Twitter.) 172.69.58.74 18:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

As someone born before 1960 who grew up when espionage shows were prevalent on television and toy spy gadgets were prevalent in toy stores, it is amusing to me the difference in what children thought about passwords then and how we use passwords now.--172.70.83.55 18:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I was also born before 1960 and I can attest that flat tires were very common then, and every kid learning how to drive also practiced changing the tire. The tire could go flat when you just hit a pothole or hit the curb. I clearly expected to have to deal with flat tires frequently. However, with the advent of radial steel tires, flats are very infrequent unless you pick up a nail or something. So nowadays, flat tires are almost nonexistent. I can now go for years without a flat. In this case change in frequency was because of changed technology rather than changed perception. Rtanenbaum (talk) 19:45, 7 January 2025 (UTC)