the hallway of youth.

Josh and Zach have moved in together. Isn't it sweet?

No, no, it's nothing like that. Josh and Zach are two of my coworkers. Their offices are directly across and diagonally from mine. Together, we make up the hallway of youth. We are the three youngest members of the office family, with Josh at 28, Zach at 26, and me at 22. More important than our age is the fact that we're all single with no children. Incidentally, we are all on the same project. Our tech lead (who is a mature family man in his thirties) calls working with us a special name: baby-sitting.

We are seen as a different kind of people entirely by our more settled coworkers. Whenever one of us has a birthday, people ask if we're old enough to buy alcohol or rent a car yet. (By the way, I will not be old enough to rent a car for another three birthdays.) When we come in on Monday mornings, it's generally assumed that we spent the weekend hours under the influence (whether or not we're old enough to buy the drinks for ourselves).

The hallway of youth is a fun place to work. Both Josh and Zach are witty, and we banter back and forth all day. Zach has his faux braggart act, and Josh can talk like a pirate. Sometimes we get on a roll and start laughing so loud that others come down the hall to see if they can't get in on the fun that the kids are having. There's a certain spot in the hall where a person can stand and see into all of our offices and talk to us all at once. You can have a good time in the spot, with youth coming at you from all directions like some sort of rejuvenating triad. It's a different kind of atmosphere over here. In no other offices can you find a pick-up game of Nerf basketball with a goal that has a cheering sound effect for every made shot. In no other part of the building can you hear trash talk being called out from different offices. In fact, I've never heard people yelling from office to office in any other hallway.

While I am part of the hallway of youth, Zach and Josh make up their own little group. They're buddies, and they hang out a lot outside of work. I suppose it was just a matter of time before they became roomies. They were both living alone, and now they've rented a house a couple of minutes away. I'm amused by what this house stands for to every other male working here. I get the feeling the older men sit at the dinner table surrounded by their screaming children and nagging wives and dream about the kind of debauchery that must go on at the bachelor pad inhabited by Josh and Zach.

I'm not seen in the same way that Josh and Zach are. I think if I say that I had a couple of drinks last night, my older coworkers assume that I had a glass of wine and got a little giggly before I fell asleep with a pair of pigtails. If Josh or Zach say they had a couple of drinks, it's assumed that they had a fifth of Jack each and got a little crazy before they fell asleep with a pair of twins. The older guys rag Josh and Zach about strip clubs, and then they turn around and give me advice about how all men are after only one thing.

Josh and Zach stand for the men ten or twenty years ago; I stand for daughters and little sisters. Josh and Zach are members of the bachelor brotherhood, and I'm a simple, single girl looking for love. Josh and Zach have the glorious position of being without the old ball and chain, and I'm a old ball and chain in training. Nevermind that Josh is getting pretty serious about that girl of his or that Zach thinks more about golf than chicks, to the committed and settled family men, they are living the dream in the hallway of youth.