Within the month, I will say goodbye to that magical decade of self-discovery that we call “our 20’s,” and venture forth into an exciting new epoch in my life. Yes, by the end of this month, I will be 30.

A lot of people I know think turning 30 is some kind of big deal, like some kind of milestone event that actually makes you feel older or something. But lately I’ve been thinking: thirty wouldn’t be such a big deal if we used something besides base-10 as our numeric system. In binary, for instance, “milestones” like turning 30 would happen at 2 (or 10, in binary), 4 (100), 8 (1000), 16 (10000), 32 (100000), 64 (1000000), and assuming anyone lives that long, 128 (10000000). According to binary, I’ve got another two years before the next “big one.” So what’s the big deal?

But I’d be lying if I were to say that turning 30 doesn’t make a small dent in my psyche, so I’m trying to make the most of it. It’s not so bad, right? For instance, just in time for the election, I can now run for US Senate. It’s too late to get on the ballot, but I think I have a pretty good chance as a write-in candidate. I think my insurance rates are supposed to go down, too. Except I don’t have a car, so that doesn’t matter much. There’s always the chance that the show thirtysomething will finally make sense to me. But considering how just hearing the theme song—and its whimsical little pan flute or whatever it was—still makes my skin crawl, I find this unlikely. (Do you remember that show’s intro, with the baby crawling around as the couple gets hot and heavy? God damn, that show sucked worse than Empty Nest.) Maybe I’m grasping at straws here. But since the only other thing I can think of that specifically relates to turning 30 is a prostate exam, I think I’m going to stop this train of thought right now, before it gets any uglier. From thirtysomething to prostate talk, I’m on a real downward spiral here.

Yeah, I guess turning 30 is pretty worthless. Maybe turning 32 will be better.