Published: April 30, 2009

With graduation day fast approaching, now is the time in the senior’s life when he looks back upon the four years of his collegiate experience and thinks to himself, “Man, I shoulda’ banged more chicks.” Now is the time when hindsight is 20/20. With the pressures of everyday, real world existence looming in the altogether too near future, one can only look back on his easy, carefree college days with an element of regret.

Why didn’t you become an active member of Tae Kwon Do? You might have whooped butt.

What did you really have to lose by taking a class at Ailey? Maybe you could have been the next Chris Brown—in a purely dancing capacity, let me assure you.

And that time that your friends went out drinking that night and you decided that you didn’t want to be hungover for your 10 a.m. class, why oh why didn’t you just go drink with them? You probably didn’t, but maybe you missed something really crazy. These questions will drive a man to the brink. Of something.

So would I put off graduating college for another semester if I could? Yup. Actually, I’m pretty amazed—and pretty annoyed—that I’m graduating on time. I really tried to stretch it out. I transferred; I went abroad; I thought for sure I’d be short a few credits when it came to this time. In fact, I was so sure that I took a summer class just so I didn’t fall too far behind. What a mistake that was, ‘cause here I am, about to graduate in a few weeks. At the time, I reasoned, “Hey, it’s better than getting a lame summer job, right?”

Oh no. I said it didn’t I? That word—that icky, nagging, ugly little word. That single syllable of doom. J-O-B. Job. Job, job, job. It’s all I’ve been hearing about lately. Everybody is always asking me, “Do you know what you’re going to do after graduation?” For me, there’s only one strategy when it comes to answering this: evasion through humor. I generally use three lines:

1) “Hey, now ain’t that the million dollar question? Ha ha, am I wrong?”

2) “I’m gonna live off the fat of the land and have rabbits,”

3) “I got hired by Citibank. No I’m just kidding. I mean why would they hire a kid out of college after they just fired you?”

These are generally sufficient conversation evaporators and a perfect time to excuse oneself to get a drink. It’s Manhattan. I’m sure there’s a bar somewhere close.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t happy about some things that come with graduation. It’ll be nice not to have to worry about all of McMahon’s silly little policies. When I’m living at home with my parents, I can do just about anything I want. I can even have girls over! My mom says that they have to be out by 3:30 a.m. unless she signs a guess pass for them. But hey, at least I can get them guest passes. Another thing I’ll be happy to leave behind at college is being forced to pretend to learn about things. Living a lie is stressful and I’ll be happy to retire from intellectual pursuit entirely for an indefinite period of time. Reality TV, here I come.