Forty is just a number. A loud, knee-cracking, deeply upsetting number.
Harrison is thirty-nine years old and absolutely fine, thank you for asking. He has a sensible job, a sensible mortgage and a knee that now announces itself on the stairs. Then a song he loved at eighteen comes on in the supermarket, a young cashier mentions that her dad loves it too, and something quietly breaks.
Enter Ryan: oldest friend, worst influence, and the man who, over one pint too many, scrawls a list on a beer mat. Ten challenges. Ten things they used to do without thinking back in their twenties. Pull an all-nighter. Survive a festival. Go viral. Recreate the one perfect day they had in the summer of 2004. Tick off all ten before Harrison turns forty, and prove that getting old is optional.
It turns out getting old is not optional.
What follows is a funny, nostalgic and heartwarming short story about friendship, ageing and the strange shock of realising that your youth is now considered "retro." As Harrison and Ryan attempt to outrun time using nothing but nostalgia, energy drinks and ambitiously bad cardio, Harrison starts to suspect the goal was never to feel twenty again, and that he may have been measuring his whole life by the wrong thing.
For anyone who grew up on MSN Messenger and burned CDs, then woke up one morning to find they were the oldest person at the party.
Millennials' Guide to Getting Old is a warm, sharp and very British comedy short story about old friends, the decade none of us can quite let go of, and the unexpected relief of growing up.
