Happy Birthday to Taylor Swift

The year following my 24th birthday was a very momentous year.  I'd just gotten married, and as a 24-year-old I had my first kid (my wife did most of the work) and moved to Alaska to take a radio job.  What does Taylor Swift have in store for her 24th year?  Here are my predictions:

1.  Taylor Swift gets back together with John Mayer

John Mayer is one of Taylor's famous exes that's been subtly, or not so subtly, sniped at in a song, and most people would assume that she's smart enough to avoid another round of heartbreak when the dog strays again.  Most people would be wrong.  Taylor Swift is now entering a new, adult phase of life.  She's being honored for CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS at award shows, for goodness sake.  Taylor has been jilted enough to have a greatest hits album based exclusively on her breakup songs.  She's to the point in life where she's ready to flip the script, and she's looking for revenge.  It won't be blatant revenge, where we'll see fans taking note of any bitterness.  No, no.  She's too smart for that.  She'll get back together with Sir John, and after a run of a few weeks we'll quietly hear of trouble in the relationship.  By the time that news hits the press we'll see Taylor out on the town with _____________ (insert hot young male celebrity here).  She'll take the high road and decline to comment.  We'll soon forget about it, and assume it's just another Taylor breakup.  Then we'll hear the first single off the new album:  "You Weren't As Good As I Remember", with lines like, "You were the best I ever had when you were the only I'd ever had", and "Now I've moved on, grown up, and this real woman needs a real man".  TMZ will catch up with John Mayer outside a coffee shop the next day, and despite denying having heard the song himself, you can see his eyes are puffy from spending the night before crying with I-Tunes on repeat.  Well done, Taylor, well done.

2.  Taylor Swift will announce her candidacy for presidency in the 2024 election

Technically, Taylor won't turn the required 35 years of age prior to the November presidential election in 2024.  That won't stop a 34-year-old Taylor Swift from taking on the Supreme Court and changing the law of the land in what will be called, "The Honorable Taylor Swift Electoral Supreme Victory" law.  After all, with so many musical achievements already tackled, over the next 11 years Taylor could very well go to college with a double major in pre-law and pre-med, followed by studying through passing the bar and simultaneously passing her medical boards.  She'll then discover a cure for cancer and create world peace through her now-socially-conscious music.  Her early announcement at her intention to run leads to what becomes the world's most-visited website, www.PresidentSwiftCountdownClock.org, a website whose Facebook page has more "Likes" than Justin Beiber, Beyonce, soccer star Ronaldo and current President Obama COMBINED.  During the years leading up to the presidential election Taylor runs for Congress and the Senate when she reaches for the minimum age for each, only to immediately resign, saying in a press release that she did it only for campaign practice.  The excitement builds over the next 11 years into a near fever pitch leading to November 2024.  At that point in time, she'll not only win the presidency in a landslide, but she'll also start America down the road to a Monarchy, with her and her children with husband John Mayer (they eventually come to realize they love only each other) becoming America's first official royal family.

3.  To prove she's not a sweet, innocent little girl anymore, Taylor will get a tattoo

Taylor Swift will be in the line at the Piggly Wiggly in South Carolina after her tour bus breaks down right outside a small town when she overhears a couple cashiers talking badly about her because she "pretends" to be a good girl.  After a late concert the night before, and little sleep before the bus broke down, Taylor becomes overwhelmed with emotion and decides to do something RIGHT THEN to prove she's not who they say she is.  She has the cashiers drive her to the local tattoo shop where some dude that looks like he's in the witness protection program and chewing on a toothpick gives her the perv eye as she looks over the tattoo selection.  Knowing she'd have to "go big or go home" to prove her point to a couple Piggly Wiggly cashiers with prison tats (and the world in general) she decides on a neck tattoo of a thick chain all the way around her neck and meeting in the front with a padlock that hangs just below her collarbone and reads "BAD GIRL".  The cell phone video quickly goes viral and within hours has more than 1 billion views.  The tattoo will start a fad among Taylor's youngest fans, and an epidemic of pre-teen girls sneaking out for illegal neck-chain tattoos begins.  Taylor regrets the decision, cops to being in an Ambien sleep-walking trance and has the tattoo painfully removed.  The tattoo-removal video tops 2 billion views within 24 hours and Taylor writes a total of 4 number-1 hits from the experience, with "Heard it at the Piggly Wiggly" spending an incredible 18 weeks in the top spot on Billboard's Country Chart.

4.  Taylor will win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship

While rehearsing to sing the National Anthem at the 2014 Daytona 500 Taylor is given an invitation to drive Jimmy Johnson's 48 car around the track a few times.  After a few instructions on the basic functions on the car Taylor takes the first trip around the track nervously before getting comfortable at the controls.  Over the next 6 laps Taylor sets the all-time track speed record three different times.  After a few laughs about her "future" in the business if the music biz ever dries up Taylor returns to the microphone for the Anthem rehearsal and everyone goes about their days, not giving it much more thought beyond a blurb on SportsCenter later that evening.  Nobody, that is, except for Taylor.  The adrenaline rush of the speed, combined with Danica Patrick making the comment, "She was cute behind the wheel and all, but it takes a REAL woman to drive DURING a race", Taylor decides to shut up Danica the easiest way possible, by putting together a team and beating her at her own game.  In the early morning hours the following day Taylor Swift has two dozen very large, very intimidating men dressed all in black visit Danica's team of mechanics and pit crew to "convince" them to leave Danica and immediately move to her new team.  After qualifying 10th for the next race in Phoenix, Team Tay-Tay leads the most laps before a late blunder by her pit crew dropping a lug nut causes her to finish 23rd.  That was the worst she'd finish all year.  After setting the NASCAR record for most victories in a single year, winning every major NASCAR award and taking home the Sprint Cup Taylor decides to hang up her racing helmet to return to music.  Kindly, Taylor returns her crew to their former boss, Danica, who by now had followed into a deep depression and was being held for psychiatric evaluation after numerous attempts to hurt herself.  The kind act wins Taylor the Nobel Peace Prize, but that won't happen until she's 25 so we have another year before we'll write about that.