>>> Edited For Content
By staff writer Mike Forest
October 6, 2004
The other day in lecture, one of my professors asked how many people go to class on a regular basis. The cute blonde in the front row with the platinum card wardrobe shot her hand up, a few others managed to get their hands around ear level and the other four people in the 400 capacity room were sleeping. I was sitting in the back of the room listening to my walking mix CD and didn’t respond either way. I may have been stoned too.
I haven’t hit the point in the semester where I don’t care anymore, but I feel it coming. How long is a semester? Here at Michigan State it’s 15 weeks plus a week for finals. Wait, maybe it’s 16 weeks. Hell, I don’t know. I just show up and stare angrily into space.
“Hold the phone, The Beech. Did you say that you go to class?”
First of all, I’m not holding any phone, but yeah, I do go to class. It’s my senior year and I still go to class. Actually, it’s my super senior year and I still go to class. I HAVE to go to class. All of my profs this semester have an attendance policy of some kind. This makes me furious.
It’s costing me thousands of my OWN dollars to go to college to get a stupid piece of paper so that one day I can get a halfway decent job to pay back my loans, buy a halfway decent car, convince a halfway decent woman to marry me, live in a halfway decent house that doesn’t have bars on the windows, and make halfway decent children who can start this cycle all over again. I figure I should decide when I want to go to class, right?
Wrong.
Every class I miss costs me a twentieth of my grade. And even though I’m way past my “I-need-to-get-an-A+-in every-class-or-I’m-going-to-cry phase,” I have entered my “I’ve-been-in-college-so-fucking-long-I-just-want-to-get-the-hell-out-of-here” phase. I’ll go to class, but I’m probably going to bitch a lot. I’m definitely going to bitch a lot.
Classes aren’t the only calendar days my attendance is mandatory. To all my friends, that means you're required to stop turning 21 for a while. In the past couple of weeks I’ve spent at least $200 at the fucking bar, and every birthday seems to be in the middle of the week when I have something to do the next day. I really enjoy drinking and watching people getting hammered, but now I have a “real” job, a full load of classes and lots of side projects that take up my time. I know. I know. Tiny violin time. But being the old guy is getting…well…old.
Happy birthday Evans, Justin, and Chad. I hope you all die face down in your fucking vomit.
So here I am sitting in class reeking of alcohol, but dammit, I’m here. I’ve had the whiskey shits four times already this morning and I know there’s gonna be more. I’ve gone preemptive so far as to spray cologne directly on my ass to try and mask the stench that is inevitably on its way. Good thing it’s my journalism class that’s three hours long…without a break. Come on, I know that compound leads are as exciting as watching milk spoil, but I need a fucking cigarette already! The lab computers are those retarded little iMacs too. I fucking hate those things.
“Look at the mouse, it’s round and cute.” Fuck off, it’s not Disney World.
We went to this shitty frat bar Sunday night for our most recent 21-year-old. Usually this is the kind of place where slutty girls meet slutty guys, skank it up on the dance floor, then go home and slut it up together while you’re sitting with your buddies drinking seven dollar Jack and Cokes wondering what they spend your fucking cover charge on because it sure ain’t a janitorial staff for the bathroom.
Since it was a Sunday night after midnight when we got there, the place was dead…which was fine because we don’t need other people to have a good time, just booze. The bad thing was that the fucking dickless bouncer was watching us like fat on rice. The only thing worse than watching fat on rice would be a 1-minute time-lapsed video of a cute girl putting on the freshman fifteen. We had been there a total of ten minutes when he came over to tell us that the birthday boy was cut off. Where are these bouncers in the freshman dining hall?
We straggled over to another bar that wouldn’t even let us in because they didn’t have anyone to “watch” the birthday boy. Damn that’s too bad because there were only fifteen people there. Even the herpes-laden chick that the bouncer was trying to bang was busted.
At this point, the booze is starting to catch up with Mr. 21. We’re trying to keep him coherent so another bar will let him in. Long story short: he drank a cup of his own spit instead of his last shot and I laughed so hard I vomited out my nose. I still smell vomit. But I suppose that’s not a coincidence. Damn I need a shower.
For now, I’m going to go back to staring into space, then the rest of my classes. Damn, I need a nap. Got another mandatory bar night tonight. It’s the only attendance policy I won’t bitch about…too much.