You Are a Badass

When I was a little kid, my parents made
my brothers and sister and I answer the
phone in this very formal way, “Jennifer
Sincero speaking,” as if, between
fighting over who got to play with the
Big Wheel and stuffing balloons down
our pants, we were all running our own
private concierge businesses. Their
friends would gush on the other end of
the phone about what a polite bunch the
Sincero kids were, and I thought nothing
of it until the day I made my very first
phone call to a friend, and, upon hearing
her answer, gripped the phone in wide-
eyed disbelief. You get to say “Hello?”
Do your parents know?! It was as
unthinkable to me at the time as saying