I’ve decided this week is easily the worst week to have your birthday, other than being squarely on Christmas Eve or Day.

Birthdays on the week of Halloween only truly suck for college kids. My good friend turns 21 today, and his party is on Friday, one of the two school-sponsored Halloween nights at Syracuse University. Personally, I feel terrible he has to share his special day.

There comes a time in every man’s life (and woman’s, for that matter) when they are given the keys to the adult world, allowed, for all intents and purposes, to do whatever they want. By the way, I know I’m not the only one who thought that saying was ‘intensive purposes.’

That time is, of course, your 21st birthday. It’s both the beginning and the end.

You can go to bars – you’re an adult, technically, I guess.

On the other hand, it’s the start of the end. Birthdays begin to rapidly decrease in importance in the grand scheme of things. The only ones that matter end in a zero, and after that, you’re dead.

Have fun.

But, while we’re here, it is time to enjoy that 21st, right?

I will set the record straight: I am not 21. I never have been, and at the rate I’m going at, I probably never will be.

If we want to be honest about the whole issue, though, turning 21 at college simply means you no longer have to sneak into bars with fake IDs or go at 4 p.m. – before they start to card – and wait for an eternity.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will let you know, I’ve never tried to get into the bars.

I’m terrible at lying, just awful. I feel as though it’s apparent to anyone who looks at me hard enough that I’m clearly not 21, for no real reason at all.

Beyond that, I can never exude the confidence one needs to sneak into a bar or any other ‘of age’ establishment. The only times I’ve tried (while in another state), I felt like Al Capone trying to sneak out of Alcatraz while wearing a name tag.

From what I gather, turning 21 is really a rite of passage. Friends you don’t have buy you drinks you don’t need and hope to get you as close to that point of ‘God, I hope he doesn’t have to go to the hospital, that would really ruin the night’ as is humanly possible.

I can’t wait.

The real reason I want to turn 21 is so I can hang out with my friends. That’s pretty much it. It’s like I’m the kid that has all of the friends in honors classes and only gets to see them during lunch.

All of the girls I want to see – at the bar.

All of the guys I want to hang out with – at the bar.

And where do I find myself at these times? In my living room, playing Mortal Kombat II.

So, now that you’re 21, you’re a grownup, right? Well, not necessarily – not on Halloween at least.

All Hallows’ Eve. I’ve never been a huge fan. When I was a kid, I was the Riddler once, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and, my absolute favorite, Captain Planet. I dyed my hair green, had the whole getup. It was terrific.

There was a point, though, where it stopped being fun. Maybe it was once I realized I could have candy as much as I wanted every other day of the year. Or maybe it was after the third year in a row of dressing up as a Yankees fan, the most pathetic, give-up costume in the history of mankind. Can I please use this column to ask all men to give up that ridiculous charade? Don’t even bother, just go the party without a costume. The whole ‘I’m dressed as myself’ routine is tired.

Women, on the other hand, have never seemed to have given up on Halloween. They’ve just graduated to a different level. The proverbial bunny, devil or winged-thing. That’s all you’ll ever really see. Again, the jig here is up. I’d like to see one girl just get it over with and go to one of these parties literally wearing nothing.

So, with Halloween in mind for this weekend, I warn the students of this campus with the famous line from Ludacris: ‘Watch out, my outfit’s ridiculous, in the club lookin’ so conspicuous.’

Scott Spinelli’s column appears every Thursday. He also wants you to know that he hates Valentine’s Day, too.

Published on October 24, 2007 at 12:00 pm