Four years after being emancipated from my parents, it looks like I will have no choice but to go back home again. Yes, as a graduating senior with a degree of (seemingly) little use, I will be once again occupying my old room steeped in baseball pennants and with a closet full of toys from days gone by. You might think I would be upset about this. Actually, it is just the opposite-it’s time to freeload like never before!
With a job at this state’s capitol seemingly within my clutches, I was all set to move out to central Connecticut-The Heartbeat Region, if you will. Then, tragedy struck in the form of a holier-than-thou group of middle managers who scratched my name off the employment lineup at the last minute. And while I am still peeved at this particular company, I feel some relief in that, at least for now, I won’t be paying all of my own freight in life.
Although the boozy haze that is college, as documented so well in the He Said column, is about to end, I am not too overcome with sadness. It is now almost a crime for me to date a freshman, and that’s a pretty good indication that you’re in the twilight of your higher education days.
Going home isn’t all that bad either. Faced with the idea of actually paying all of my expenses in an apartment, mooching off the folks sounds mighty fine.
The fact of the matter is, and anyone who knows me can tell you, I am a painfully cheap man. So I move home and get a job pumping gas. The folks charge minimal rent while I let the local Exxon pad my bank account! The Internet is free, the cable is free and the quality time with my folks is priceless.
Sure, the job is boring and I will eventually lose much of my education (due to gas fumes), but it’s still a job. (ExxonMobil is a Fortune 500 company I may remind you.)
The irony of this whole thing is that my parents sent me away to get educated and “leave the nest,” so to speak. While they succeeded in the first part, I will now be returning to the nest as a smarter, more cynical, and more sarcastic product of their loins. If anything, this arrangement is biting them in the butt.
I figure it’s only a matter of time until my mother puts enough pressure on my father to utilize his contacts and get me a decent job that would enable me to move out.
Either that, or I go to law school and sue all the people who bothered me throughout college. (Trust me, it’s a long list and it would be a lot of litigation!)
So, to all my fellow arts and sciences graduates and future graduates, I have this to offer. Enjoy the time you have at school and keep dreaming that that folklore degree will get you by in life. You, my friend, will mooch just like me.
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