v. 1. to date a younger, stupider, less mature, less attractive, and/or in any way inferior person, just because they provide cheap, easy, yet only mildly satisfying carnal, intellectual and/or social engagement. 2. To have friendship with a younger, stupider, less mature, less attractive, and/or in any way inferior person because they are willing to submit to you. 3. To do anything not becoming of a person your age in some vanity fueled attempt to regain the days of yore a la John Updike's Rabbit or that thirty year old coke head at the bar.

essentially, to order off the kids' menu means you are the one at the dinner table eating chicken fingers and pbj while everyone else is diggin' into some white asparagus foie gras dumplings with bourbon gastrique. The bar is low and you're applauding yourself for your meagre every day hurdles. You are (were) a communications or journalism major. Your reading threshold is humor (The Onion!) and graphic novels, and the people your age discuss Foucault with such aplomb it makes you cry at night into your girlfriend's soft, shiny, pubescent, strawberry smelling hair. You dropped out of college years ago, listen to emotive yet angry -core suffixed tunes, and ride bikes with a bunch of college students aping The Outsiders. You mosh and you are over 18. You watch cartoons when you aren't high. You put up with slobs as long as they adore you. You are still having one night stands every weekend you get drunk. Everytime you go to a bar you black out and you've been drinking legally for at least 3 years. You work at Borders.

order off the kids' menu by VRB October 27, 2005