Business Trip, Final Day: Cheers & Jeers

The conference officially ended yesterday, but since it was being held in The Place That Time and Wireless Internet Forgot, I am posting this today from the safety of my cubicle, after traveling 8 hours through 3 airports in an attempt to transport my ass a measly 500 miles back home. Sigh.

CHEERS:

• Watching people fall asleep. Never gets old. Especially watching the guy who looked like the lolrus’s little brother (the “lilrus”?) nod off repeatedly for about two hours straight.
• Dicsovering that – no matter how camouflaged and covered with bad-ass patches – jumpsuits make grown men look like huge toddlers.
• The painting on the wall of a bald eagle in front of an American flag, wearing an American flag around its neck because THIS IS THE MOST AMERICAN PIECE OF ART ON THE PLANET and holy shit, does the artist ever want you to know it.
• Let’s explore this idea of the most American piece of art on the planet, shall we? I submit that it would be George Washington, wearing a suit made out of apple pie and baseball, shooting a flaming bald eagle with a beak-ful of Freedom Fries out of a cannon through the window of a Starbucks. All in front of an American flag, natch.
• The guy with the Fu Manchu mustache, because really. The world needs more guys with Fu Manchu mustaches.

JEERS:

• The woman who occasionally coughs SO LOUD that I suspect she is trying to give herself an instant hemorrhoid.
• The horseshit $55 fee I had to pay for “provided food,” which amounted to: One (1) cat asshole muffin, two (2) room temperature chicken wings, three (3) pieces of sweaty pineapple (I don’t want to talk about it), four (4) cups of coffee that managed to be weak yet make me supremely jittery, so that when Instant Hemorrhoid up there coughed, I nearly shat myself, one (1) piece of honeydew melon that was so hard I used it to level out a wobbly table.
• Crudites that were provided as an “afternoon snack.” I can’t think of anything else that satisfies the 3pm munchies better than some raw cauliflower that will give you crippling gas 45 minutes later.
• In addition to raw fucking vegetables, our afternoon snack included slices of what looks like birthday cake, with no large mother-cake in sight. I am beginning to think that we are eating leftovers from a little girl’s 9th birthday party at the roller rink.
• The temperature in the room, which hovered right around absolute zero.

But at least I was never in any danger of being clubbed for my pelt.

Business Trip, Day 2: Cheers & Jeers

JEERS:

• The scratch on my hand that periodically sends me into a panic because there have been numerous instances in the drug-resistant staph virus in this town, and hey, does this scratch look funny to you?
• The chocolate muffin from the breakfast tray that tasted like cat asshole. Seriously, how do you fuck up a chocolate muffin? I ask you.
• The woman who got all snippy about people having to step over the power cord to my laptop. Settle down, bitch; most of these people have served in active combat, I’m pretty sure they can manage NOT TO TRIP ON A CORD.
• The conference center has no wireless. I am starting to think the conference center is located in 1992.

CHEERS:

• Watching a lady across the room try to discreetly fall asleep with her head leaning back on the chair, then watching her wake up in a panic when her head dramatically swings down towards her chest and attracts the attention of everyone in the room.
• My endless fascination with all of the delicious foreign accents in the group. I am tempted to kidnap one of the British attendees and make them read me Beatrix Potter stories until I fall asleep.
• The Australian man in my discussion group who (in addition to having an awesome accent) looks like Wallace. Just need to find someone who looks like Gromit to sit next to him.
• The woman from yesterday is still staring, but I’ve officially decided: she’s in love with me. Makes it a lot more interesting that way.
• The grumpy, argumentative man in the briefing session who looks like the lolrus.
• Most of the traffic on my blog is still a direct result of people Googling various iterations of “The Shocker.” I always knew it would make me popular.

Taking Care of Business

That’s the cameraphone-captured view from the hotel room that will be my home for the next 3 nights while I attend a Big Important [very boring] Conference for my job. Yes, I’m on a business trip – which is actually kind of a novelty for me, since this is only the second one I’ve taken in my life. The first trip took me to the Middle East, so this trip to the southeast U.S. will likely contain more dinners at Ruby Tuesday’s and less time spent pondering my fate at vehicle checkpoints in the middle of the desert.

More mini-burgers; less invasive, full-body pat-downs.

So far, it’s been…interesting. Among the highlights of my trip so far:

• Riding on a propeller plane that was so loud it sounded like a damn vibrator with wings.
• Seeing my boss get hit on by a drunk girl at a bar, who announced to everyone in attendance that she had Tourette’s Syndrome before going to the restroom to vomit.
• The guy at the same bar who kept talking shit about the Steelers (we were watching the game) just to get a rise out of me.
• He finally came over to me and said, “I can’t believe the Steelers are getting beaten by the Buccos in the first quarter!”
• (They were playing the Broncos, and it was the 3rd quarter.)
• Shortly after that, he hooked up with Tourette’s Girl.
• The conference attendee from an undisclosed foreign country (Sorry to be so cagey, but I don’t want to lose my job) who, during his presentation, referred to President Bush as, “Your president with the…exceptional personality.” Heh.
• Watching not one, not two, not three, but FOUR grown men pick their noses during the presentations.
• Being equally fascinated with the guy sitting next to me who had no desire to hide his total boredom from the rest of the group and filled an entire 45 minutes with sighing, shifting his weight in his chair, and yawning.
• Catching the same woman staring at me five times in a row. She either hates me or is in love with me.
• The realization that no one does any fucking work on these trips. Seriously.
• How can I weasel my way into some more of these?

Dear Person Who Found My Blog By Googling “One in the Stink,”

God, I love you people.

Love,

Jive Turkey

How Randy Quaid Convinced Me To Get a Tattoo, and Other Tales

One of my very favorite things to do at the end of a long day is to fall asleep on the sectional sofa in front of the television. HoST hates this nasty little habit of mine, because he feels it’s his responsibility to wake my ass up and convince me to come upstairs to bed before 1) my contact lenses permanently suction themselves to my tender little corneas, 2) my remote-control-holding arm falls asleep for so long that it results in eventual amputation, and/or 3) I wake up at 6am in a panic, knowing I have to go to work in one hour after the shittiest night’s sleep of my life.

While it’s very sweet of him to worry, I’m afraid I don’t repay the sweetness when he attempts to wake me up from my blissful sectional slumber. I am not – and never have been – a morning person, and the earlier you try to wake me up, the bigger of a raging, horrific, satanic she-devil I am.

Oh, Meryl Streep.

And the worst part? I don’t even remember acting that way the next morning when I’m fully awake. It’s like some sort of sleep drunkenness, without the pissing oneself and the sexual shenanigans in the backseat of a Cavalier.

So HoST has finally given up on my crabby ass, and now lets me sleep on the couch to my heart’s content. Sure, this means many instances of waking up at 4am to an infomercial for Colon Cleanse,

Oh my God, you guys, DO NOT EVER Google image search “colon cleanse.” TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. Also: What in hell is that brush for? *Shudder*

but he doesn’t have to deal with my semi-conscious rantings and ravings, and I get to fall asleep watching some of my favorite, sleep-enhancing TV shows.

What shows are those, you ask? Come, let me whisper in your shell pink ear.

I have my regular, mainstream favorite TV shows, suitable for watching during normal daylight or early evening hours. I love The Office, 30 Rock, some HBO stuff…pretty normal. But when I’m sleepy? And in my jammies? And want to cuddle up on the couch with a blanket and the cat? I fucking love documentaries. And not the stimulating kind that explore the heartbreak of Russian orphanages or the seedy life of prostitutes in New York City(although that was a good one) – I like the boring shit. How Cheese is Made. Civil War-Era Medical Procedures. Some Dudes Go Try To Prove Some New Theory About Why The Titanic Sank, Unaware That The World Is Totally Over It. You get the idea.

The bulk of these programs air on The History Channel, and for that, I love them. Yes, The History Channel may be the dried-up old spinster of cable TV, shuffling around her dusty house in slippers and always smelling vaguely of soup, but I adore that old bitch.

However. She has a nasty habit of airing certain programs that are not suited for someone as pants-shittingly anxious as I am. The shows in question? Here’s a sampling:

“The Doomsday Clock”

“Countdown to Armageddon”

“Mega Disasters”

“Go Ahead and Eat That Pie, Bitch; Your Ass Is Going To Get Vaporized When A Meteor Hits Earth In 2015 Anyway”

OK, so maybe I made up that last one, but that’s pretty much the tenor of these programs. We’re all going to die! Soon, and horrifically! Nostradamus said so [in a very vague way that we are interpreting to our liking]! Let us show you the various and sundry ways it can happen!

Their version of events contain slightly less Bruce Willis, and slightly more death by a flesh-eating alien supervirus.

Yet, in a very bizarre, very twisted way, these shows make me feel better. Why? Because if we are all going to be destroyed in 25 years, then, hell, what am I so worried about? Who cares if I have exactly $43 dollars in my 401k? My ass will be too busy floating through the galaxy as space dust to retire to a condo in Boca. Credit card debt? Not so much an issue when the sun expands and engulfs the earth in a fiery wave. Alzheimer’s? I fear the massive, continent-swallowing tsunami has beaten you to the punch, my good sir.

Don’t you see? The end of the world isn’t scary, it’s freeing! It’s the perfect excuse to put this month’s electric bill payment towards a nice pair of shoes, and to go on that trip to Italy you’ve always dreamed of, and just generally act like a totally immature, irresponsible asshole. Why not? Who cares! You don’t want to be the douchebag who refuses a slice of cake for dessert only to wake up the next morning to see this:

“Dammit! And it was yellow with chocolate icing – my favorite!”

So, when you see a little ray of sunshine in the news like this uplifting little tidbit about a drug-resistant virus that is extremely easy to contract and may kill more people than AIDS will this year, don’t fret and wash your hands with Clorox! Take the rest of the day off and buy that HDTV you’ve had your eye on! If you get the virus, at least you will die having watched Golden Girls re-runs in crisp, clear detail.

I’m pretty sure that’s better than being alive, anyway.

The naysayers among you may want to fault me for placing such stock in shows aired by a network that also airs documentaries entitled “The History of the Brassiere,” but if Scientologists are allowed to believe their alien pod Xenu horseshit, I am certainly allowed to believe Nostradamus.

Of course, if he was wrong and I am forced to live out a long, natural life with no retirement fund, no condo in Boca, and not even enough money to shuffle around my own house smelling vaguely of soup…I am totally fucked.

“Oh, snap! I was just playin’! Contribute to your 401k, bitch!”

But don’t waste your time trying to convince me I’m wrong. After all, I am the girl who, in 1996, used the experience of seeing “Independence Day” to cement her decision to get a tattoo. Yes, you read that correctly. And no, I’m not kidding.

Holy shit, you guys, what if the Fresh Prince really can’t save us from an alien invasion? I seriously doubt Randy Quaid will be able to do it alone! FUCK IT: I’m getting that tattoo.

 

He Is A Few of My Favorite Things

This Saturday is HoST’s 30th birthday. I’ve already been 30 for ten months, which bothers me. Not because I’m uncomfortable being 30, but because I really don’t like being older than HoST. I’m not sure why – I think I worry that being older than him means I have to be the level-headed, more mature one who balances the checkbook, files the taxes, and kills those huge fucking centipedes in the basement.

 

I don’t even want to TALK about the time one FELL OFF THE CEILING AND ONTO MY LAP WHILE I WAS ON THE TOILET OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THE TERROR.

But in actuality, I don’t have to do any of those things, because HoST indulges my desire to pretend I am the younger one – and my completely pathetic belief that being mere months younger than him would somehow equate to a total inability to balance the checkbook. Because he is awesome. And incredible. And I can’t even begin to express how deeply I love him on a blog where I talk about diarrhea from chicken pot pies, so let us move on.

I thought it might be nice on this, the week of HoST’s birthday, to relate to the internet the story of how we met, if only because this story involves musical theatre, irritable bowel syndrome, and the many sins citrus-flavored vodka can commit against your digestive system, and really, who am I to deprive my two readers of such brilliant storytelling?

(Nevermind that one of those readers is HoST, and he already totally knows this story. As he was there.)

Our story begins in the summer of 1997. I was working at the mall and getting drunk as much as possible, facilitated by my ID, which I had crudely doctored with silver nail polish. I didn’t turn 21 until December, but I covered up the “1″ in the “12″ so that it appeared I had been born in February. And that shit worked EVERYWHERE. I was totally amazed. All anyone had to do was give that little blob of nail polish the teeniest scrape and my cover would have been blown, but it NEVER happened. No one ever seemed to notice that there should have been a “0″ where the blob was if I had really been born in February, but oh well. More Jim Beam and box wine for me.

It’s like a party with a handle!

ANYWAY. Summer of ‘97. I decided to audition for a local community theatre production of “The Sound of Music,” as I LOVE that movie, and used to watch it every year when they aired it on ABC. I still remember the year when I realized that Christopher Plummer was one hot little schnitzel with noodles, IF you know what I mean.

Do Re Me Fa So hot.

Because I was a total self-involved theatre major coming off a year where I had gotten some lead roles at school, I was totally confident that I’d land the part of Liesel. After all, this was community theatre and I was a theatre major at a large university – I’d done Shakespeare and read, like, two whole Ibsen plays, you guys. Surely, I would get the part.

I so totally did not get the part.

But you know what part I DID get?

“Somewhere out there is a young girl who will never be a nun.”

Yes, the Baroness. The crusty, old, bitter Baroness. Did I mention I was all of 20 years old at the time? But, hey, the Baroness is a total bitch and therefore fun to play – not to mention she has two [god awful] songs that were cut out of the movie [for fucking good reason]. So I embraced my role as the Baroness, and quietly hated that bitch who got cast as Liesel. Just part of my character, you understand.

HoST, meanwhile, was cast as Rolfe, that adorable little Nazi who rats out Liesel and her family after VonTappin’ that ass in the gazebo. HoST, who has a fucking amazing singing voice, was a total stranger to me, so apart from watching his scenes with That Bitch Liesel, I had absolutely no interaction with him whatsoever.

As I mentioned, that summer I spent whatever time I wasn’t at work or rehearsal partying my damn fool head off. Whiskey was my drink of choice. Unfortunately, this was the summer my stomach went all to hell, and rebelled against just about anything I’d put in it. No matter what I did, I almost always ended up in crippling pain in the evenings. I’d like to say that this curbed my consumption of hard liquor – the one thing I knew for absolute sure wasn’t doing me any good – but…not so much. I just took to supplementing my liquor with Pepto Bismol. LOTS of Pepto Bismol. Behold the photographic evidence:

Gee, you guys, I can’t imagine WHY my stomach burns with the intensity of a warehouse fire every night – can you?

After one particularly harrowing evening writhing around in pain, my mother decided to take me to the doctor. But I had to go to rehearsal first. I remember walking in the door to the theatre, and seeing HoST standing there, staring at me. I said hi, and he just kept staring. Fine, I thought. I’ve got a fifth of Early Times burning a hole in my stomach lining; I don’t have time to figure out why you don’t like me. And that was the sum total of our interaction during the entire run of the show.

[HoST would later tell me that he was nursing a major crush on me and - while he doesn't remember the interaction above - he's certain he probably just froze and didn't know what to say. Methinks he was actually just put-off by my awesome hangover hair and wrinkled clothes that were probably reeking of booze, but you know. I'll take lovestruck.]

After the show was over, one of the cast members threw a pool party at her house, and at the last minute I decided to go. I really had no desire to join Mother Abbess and her gigantic Climb-Ev’ry-Mountain bosoms in the pool (and I also didn’t bring a bathing suit), so I just sat in a lawn chair wondering why the fuck I had agreed to come in the first place. Before I knew it, HoST was sitting beside me, and we struck up a conversation. He was fucking hilarious. I stayed at the party way longer than I had intended just to keep talking to him, but eventually had to leave to go pack up my things for my move back to college the next morning. We exchanged email addresses, and I remember thinking that I’d wished we’d gotten to know each other sooner, because maybe then the summer would have contained more fun and less stomach acid. Or at least more fun.

After that, I had to live through the hell that was my first semester of my junior year. It was ass. My stomach was still a mess, I was in terrible shows, my roommate and I weren’t getting along, and I was having some pretty rough relationship problems with a guy who – in hindsight – should never have been more than a friend to me. I cried and popped Maalox way more than anyone really ever should.

Then, right before Thanksgiving break, I got an email. From HoST. Turns out he had lost my address, and – through some pretty impressive detective work – called the theatre office and asked them for it. Thankfully, the secretary had no problem giving out my personal information to perfect strangers, and HoST e-mailed me. He asked if I was interested in hanging out over the break while we were both home from school. Remembering how much fun I had talking to him at the pool party (and how much fun I was NOT having in my present situation), I immediately agreed.

So we met up. And he was just as awesome as I had remembered. And he could really make me laugh…not the ha-ha-you’re-a-guy-I-don’t-know-very-well-so-I-shall-laugh-to-be-polite, but real laughing – the kind I couldn’t stop if I tried. He was smart. And kind. And not afraid to make fun of me. I found myself conveniently avoiding telling him that I had a boyfriend. Afterwards, as I saw his car driving away from me on the highway, I got a little pang in my stomach that decidedly was not acid-related: I was sad to see him go.

After finals week – which contained more misery and pathetic sobbing – I decided to throw myself one hell of a 21st birthday party. I got a hotel room. And lots of Mylanta. I was not kidding around. I invited HoST, and to my great delight, he said he’d be there.

The party was a blast. For most of us, at least. Poor HoST got a little gung-ho with the Absolut Citron and ended up forming a close, personal relationship with the bathroom floor of the hotel room. Somehow, I managed to be totally charmed by this. Don’t ask me how. The powers of the universe were obviously scheming to bring us together, and I formed a sudden soft spot for this sweet guy who had the Holiday Inn’s bathroom tile pattern pressed into the side of his face. Sigh.

The next morning, I had to work. Being the consummate professional I was, I showed up at the mall (which was, conveniently, across from the hotel) reeking of booze and cigarettes. I was also probably still drunk, but luckily for me, my manager was the kind who enjoyed getting her herb on in the stockroom, so I fit right in. Unfortunately, I was running late, and had no time to grab my beloved hangover breakfast burrito from the McDonald’s in the food court upstairs. HoST, hearing me lament my lack of a breakfast burrito that would most likely not stay in my body for very long, walked over to the mall in his painful hangover haze, waited in the insanely long McDonald’s line, bought me a burrito, and delivered it to me at the store.

To a hungover 21-year-old facing an 8-hour retail shift? This was love.

Ah! Sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee!

HoST and I hung out for the remainder of Christmas break, and it didn’t take me long to completely fall for him. Early one morning as we were driving back home from a friend’s party on a nearly empty interstate, I looked out over the road and realized – with absolute certainty – that I wanted to ride along with him in his beat-up old Eagle forever.

Of course, being the annoyingly anxious and paranoid bundle of stomach acid I am, I worried that this amazing connection we had would fizzle over time, and pretty soon he’d stop making me laugh and I’d be back to crying tears into my Pepto. I mean, that’s the way these things go, right?

Ten years later, I’m here to tell 20-year-old me: It doesn’t change. He still bends over backwards to perform the tiniest act of kindness for you (be it burrito-related or not), and he still makes you laugh harder than anyone else on this planet. He’s your best friend, and he’s your whole life.

And he’s also turning 30 on Saturday. Happy birthday, you old bastard.

“In my day we didn’t have hair dryers. If you wanted to blow dry your hair you stood outside during a hurricane. Your hair was dry but you had a sharp piece of wood driven clear through your skull and that’s the way it was and you liked it! You loved it!”

 

Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot BLURRGH

In what just might be the most delicious news of the day, the CDC has announced that Banquet brand chicken pot pies may be responsible for the latest salmonella outbreak.

Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. In other words, not much different from the usual reaction you’d get upon ingesting a meat-filled pastry available for purchase at most gas station convenience stores for $1.99.

Diarrhea AND a chance to win a trip to the Daytona 500? Someone pinch me!

“Girls, everything in your life will be borderline disgusting.”

That’s what my 9th grade health teacher said before she pressed “play” on the VCR and the footage of a real, actual childbirth hit my unsuspecting eyes for the first time.

The more I read and learn about this whole pregnancy/childbirth/parenting thing, the more I realize that she knew what she was talking about.

Yikes.

“Did Somebody Order a Pizza?”

Dear Person Who Found My Blog By Googling “Male Stripper,”

Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the site you were looking for. I’ll do the best I can, though:

“Hey, ladies! We all ready to have a good time? Sounds like it! Alright, who’s the birthday girl? Hi there, sweetheart. What’s your name? Dana? Now here’s what I need you to do, Dana: bring a chair to the middle of the room here and have a seat. Yeah, right there’s fine. Beautiful. OK, now – what’s your name, darlin’? Amanda? OK, Amanda, can you press play on the CD player? Great. I’m bringin’ Sexy Back! WOOOO! Let’s get this party started, ladies! Hey, hey, watch it there, Dana! That’ll cost you extra! Seriously, no touching. Not unless I ask you to first. OK, I’m going to do a handstand and you just grab my ankles. Got the cameras ready, ladies? That’s right! Here we go!”

At least that’s how I remember it.

Hope that helped.

Love,

Jive Turkey

“I’m about to bring you ladies in on a charge of aggravated AROUSAL!”

The Way We [Aggravatingly] Were

I work in a neighborhood that contains two very large college campuses. This means that when I go out at lunch, I am subjected to the wide gamut of college-related stereotypes: loud sorority chicks clogging the sidewalk, frat guys with obnoxious popped collars pushing each other around, Sensitive Artists drinking tea and reading and/or writing something pretentious at outdoor cafe tables, and “hippies” in hemp shoes, reeking of Nag Champa & plucking away at their guitars. (I put “hippies” in quotes, because I am willing to bet the mortgage that these fuckers will be wearing power suits and kissing corporate ass before their undergraduate diplomas show up in the mail.)

Enjoy your drum circle while it lasts, asshole.

This might sound like an unappealing place to be, but oh no, my friend. The entertainment value, she is high. Especially around this time of year, when so many wide-eyed 18-year olds are getting their first taste of college life.

Ah, how I remember my first semester of college. It was all at once exciting, scary, weird, awful, and eye-opening for me. Mostly I just remember being pissed that all the kids in my dorm were Honors students & never got drunk (just stoned). It took me a few weeks to figure out that all the good parties happened at the other end of campus (where the Greek houses were, natch). Not that I was some kind of party animal – I never drank a drop in high school – but I saw college as the time when I was allowed – nay, EXPECTED – to drink and drink and drink until I found myself fighting back a vomit gag in a frat house hallway (which is entirely hypothetical, you understand).

You rarely turned out to be a wise choice, Bud Ice.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. First semester at college.

Working in this neighborhood also means I am subjected to the huge influx of students around the end of August, which can be annoying if you forget to stop and enjoy the clusterfuck-ed-ness of it all, because it only gets better from there. You see, as amusing as it is to watch an 18-year-old trying to process how the fuck he will ever find his way to class and how the fuck he will manage to feed himself AND do his own laundry, and how the fuck will he be able to stand his parents for the duration of move-in week, it’s even more fun to predict where he’ll end up by semester’s end. After all, freshman year is a time of growing and learning…if you replace “growing” with “scoring your first D-average,” and “learning” with “waking up in a concrete fountain covered in your own sick, with absolutely no clue how you got there.”

I think we all weathered some disastrous events during freshman year – events that would make the high school versions of ourselves react in abject horror/disgust/shame/admiration. For me, it was discovering the power of skipping class (and skipping my Honors classes, no less!), and exploring the limits of my tolerance for alcohol. Oh, and that one time I hired a male stripper for my friend’s birthday, had some girls sign him in as their guest at an all-girls dorm (while he was dressed in a COP UNIFORM, no less), and then hid in the bathroom whenever the long arm of the law (a.k.a. three fat R.A.s) busted us after about 20 minutes of high-octane dorm-room stripper action.

“Oh my God, Felicia, I can’t believe you let him straddle your face! Wanna get some fro-yo?”

And then there was my poor friend LuLu – high school valedictorian and recipient of a full college scholarship – who ended up so pants-pissin’ drunk after only an hour at an off-campus kegger that the entire population of the party came outside to taunt her as she lay passed out in the bed of a random pick-up truck.

“Class of ‘95…can someone hold back my hair?”

So, yeah, there’s somewhat of an adjustment period when you enter the wide world of college living. But most of us eventually relax, remember to study every once in a while, and steer clear of any ingestible liquids with the words “Mad” or “Dog” on the label. We fall in with a group of friends we’re comfortable with, we (hopefully) start to enjoy our classes – things just kind of fall into place.

And then? We become annoying. Really, really annoying.

Seriously, is there any group of people more annoying than college students (besides the old bags in that fucking stupid Red Hat Society)? It’s doubtful. Although I didn’t always feel this way. I got my undergrad degree in 1999, and for the first 2 or 3 years afterwards, as I struggled in the world of utility bills and painfully low-paying jobs, I desperately missed my college days. I pined for the crazy parties, low-rent apartments shared with best friends, the near-zero responsibilities. To be a college student forever, I thought, would truly be a fantastic way to live.

I eventually stopped actively yearning for my college days, but every now and then I’d pass a group of careless 19-year-olds during my lunch hour – undoubtedly on their way to get drunk or take naps or some such luxury – and I’d feel a twinge of jealousy. I just knew those lousy bastards would be playing quarters and watching Happy Gilmore while I’d be sitting at my miserable little desk, listening to the receptionist talk about how – for her money – nothing cures a little irregularity like some cod liver oil.

So glamorous, my life!

Then one day I came across a group of college students sitting on the stairs of a campus building, smoking cloves in their Che Guevara t-shirts and talking loudly, as college students do. I heard part of their conversation, and holy shit. It was idiotic. Beyond idiotic. I would recount it here, but my brain immediately destroyed the neurons that captured that information in the interest of self-preservation. And just like that, it hit me: college students are completely clueless, entitled little shits who know nothing about anything, yet have an opinion about everything. Kind of like that lady at your office who doesn’t have kids, but feels compelled to give parenting advice to those who do.

“You know, Pete, little Madison probably wouldn’t throw tantrums at school if you and your wife didn’t let her watch so much television. My cats never watch television, and they’re just perfect angels.”

I emailed my friend Bird – who had often commiserated with me in the days when I longed to be back in college – and asked her point blank: “Were we annoying in college?”

It did not take her long to reply. In the affirmative.

Now, I knew I had matured a lot since college, but it had never occurred to me that I had been an insufferable little shit. After all, I always thought of college as a high point in my life – a time when I could get drunk or take naps whenever I damn well pleased, when paying rent was as easy as my parents sending the landlord a check, when I only thought as far ahead as the next weekend.

Oh. Hey. Waaaaaaait a second. I was a lazy drunk who didn’t pay her own rent and was arrogant enough to never plan ahead for more than a week at a time? And I thought I wasn’t a complete self-centered asswipe? Oh my. I think I’m beginning to understand now.

Yes, college-age me sure did have a lot of fun, but she was absolutely fucking clueless. She had no idea how to handle herself in job interviews, let her temper get the best of her way too often, and still hadn’t grasped that the only way to avoid fights with her parents was to just fucking tell them what they wanted to hear already instead of trying to get them to see her point of view. Also, her two main food groups were “noodles,” and “sauce,” and Jesus Christ, it’s no wonder I was sick all the time.

I saved “Creamy Mushroom” for special occasions.

Oh, I still treasure my college days – it was during those days I met some of my dearest friends (and my husband) – and in my defense, college-age me had no idea how ignorant she was. And she learned A LOT during those four years – most of it the hard way, which was probably the best way. And yes, I’m pretty sure the college kids look at me, in my sensible work clothes and ID badge, taking my American Heart Association-recommended 30-minute daily walk through campus, and roll their eyes at the lameness that they, surely, will never become. And that’s OK. Because present-day me has never been happier to be almost ten years removed from the days of Ramen and Box Wine, of Term Papers and Drafty Apartments, of Inappropriate Boyfriends and Hangovers So Bad You Are Certain Your Digestive System Is Attempting To Escape From Your Body And Possibly Run Away To France.

“Sacrebleu! Ze stupid college girl, she will hurt me no more with ze Boone’s Farm and ze late-night pizza! Au revoir! Bonne chance! Croissant! Jerry Lewis!”