By the grace of God, I graduate in June. Although I am ecstatic about finally having a degree and having had some excellent experiences along the way, I find myself practically jumping out of my skin to get out of here. Now that the glorious day of commencement is only a few weeks away, I thought it might be therapeutic to compile my gripes into one comprehensive, efficient invective instead of assailing my friends with intermittent tirades for the next 39 days. I hope you find it cathartic, too.
10. Nontraditional
students.
By “nontraditional,” I mean old. Hey — just because you’ve been treading the earth longer than the rest of us combined doesn’t mean you have the right to commandeer the class with your relentless stupid questions. I know you haven’t been in school for a while, but try to shake off the rust before you get here, capiche? And please, no more anecdotal wisdom! You remember when you thought old people were wet blankets? Guess what — now you’re the wet blanket!
9. People who park incorrectly.
Yes, there is a wrong way to park. And that would be to leave half a car-length behind you and half a car-length in front. If there are tickets for parking in the wrong place, why aren’t there tickets for this?
8. People who say “like.”
Like, we’re in college now, so, like, learn how to talk, ‘kay?
7. Bicyclists.
In a way, I’m sort of grateful that because of these people, my children will have slightly less carbon monoxide to choke on until the mass extinction we’re causing takes out all complex life. But that doesn’t mean they’re so high and mighty that they can ignore the rules of the road.
6. The textbook scam.
New editions every year, vacuum-sealed editions that can’t be returned if opened, course packets that cost $4 to produce but $54 to buy because of copyrights — blah, blah, blah. It all makes me want to puke.
5. Homeless people.
Don’t get squeamish now, because this is an equal opportunity diatribe. I know that I am supposed to feel sorry for the downtrodden, but when I can’t go three hours without someone asking me for money, my patience wears thin.
Yeah, they could be victims of the system — but they could also be entitled, no-good punks who had their chances but opted to pilfer from their mothers’ purses to get drunk under an overpass instead and are now merely suffering the consequences of their decisions. Not everyone who is in a tight spot doesn’t deserve it.
4. Salespeople.
Why is it considered appropriate for a bunch of charlatans to clog campus with their booths full of second-rate shit? Does anybody actually apply for credit cards to get those chintzy, insulting T-shirts and generic sunglasses? “Hey, look at me, I’m wearing a shirt that promotes smoking weed — I’m subversive! Never mind that a mega-corporation used it to lure me into perpetual financial slavery!”
3. Stupid people.
Don’t get me wrong — I don’t question stupid people’s right to exist; without them, the world would be much less interesting. But why do they have to go to college? I read somewhere not too long ago that some legal firms now have to teach recent law school graduates how to write things like simple internal memos. Damn it, if you can’t write a memo, how did you graduate high school, let alone law school?
2. Girls who wear makeup at the rec center.
Need I elaborate?
1. Jerk professors.
What else could be No. 1? Any rant about college has to end here. I’d have thought that the stereotype of the pompous, didactic, self-obsessed professor was prevalent enough that aspiring academics would avoid falling into it at all costs. Not so. This one is for every student who has been ignored, shut down, openly derided or otherwise frustrated for not bending over backward to congratulate a professor for his or her inestimable genius — in other words, all of us.