The worst day of your life, graduation, is upon you. You’re doing your best to imagine and/or drink it away, but it’s all too real. Every aunt, uncle, neighbor, professor, and member of your mother’s sewing circle/Xanax club is constantly reminding you that doomsday is rapidly approaching. They’re all just dying to get your input on the matter. Try as you might to avoid these inquisitions, they’re going to happen. They’ll probably go a little something like this.
What They Ask: So, graduation’s coming up soon, huh? When is it? It’s right around the corner, right?
What You Think: Thanks so much for reminding me, asshole. For the next three weeks, I will be drinking every single night in hopes of forgetting when graduation is. Thank heavens I’m fortunate enough to have life-ruiners like you to remind me about it. By the way, how are all of your husband’s “business trips” coming along? Is his secretary still accompanying him on those? See, it’s not so nice when people remind you of the reasons you’re miserable. Bitch.
What You Say: Yeah, it’s three weeks from Saturday.
What They Ask: Time to become a part of the real world, huh? No more partying!
What You Think: Ah, the future is looking less dim by the minute. I can’t wait to wave goodbye to my youth and the sorority girl formerly known as “fun.”
What You Say: Ha.
What They Ask: So are you excited about graduation?
What You Think: Eck-fucking-scuse me? Am I excited? About GRADUATION?! Are Taiwanese hookers excited to be trafficked into sex slavery? Are 16-year-old skanks excited to tell their parents they got pregnant by their trailer trash boyfriends because they were practicing the “rhythm method?” Are 10-year-old Somalian children excited to take care of their 14 younger brothers and sisters? Sarah McLaughlin certainly doesn’t seem to think so! Of course I’m not fucking excited to trade my faux independence, my best friends, my proclivity for blacking out, and my favorite non-memories for a world in which the moral depravity I’ve come to know, live, and love is no longer acceptable — a world in which beer pong is considered putrid and promiscuous sex, irresponsible — a world in which passing out due to intoxication…at the bar is no longer celebrated but rather condemned. Is this some kind of sick joke, you fucking masochist?
What You Say: It should definitely be different. I don’t really know what to expect. I’m really going to miss it here.
What They Ask: What are you going to do when you get out of here?
What You Think: You are a fucking rude-ass bitch for asking me such a personal and invasive question like that, but if you MUST know, I was planning to move back in with my parents, who live in the town where the only person I’d willingly spend time with is my 9-year-old brother. I will stay up every night until the morning news comes on at 4:00 or 5:00AM, doing God fucking knows what on the internet, while drinking wine by myself and eating a block of cheese in my parents’ basement. I will wake up at 3:00PM on most days, and wait patiently for three hours until the highlight of my day when my mother comes home. I will race my dog to the door to greet her and she will respond with anger because I’ve neither cleaned the house nor cooked dinner in her absence. I will spend my weekends traveling to all the neighboring cities where my friends have moved, spending money I don’t really have, as I work as a waitress at a small, failing, family-owned restaurant. I don’t know why I kept telling myself I’d “figure it out,” because I’m being catapulted into the “real world” in three weeks and the only thing I’ve figured out is that I’m a huge loser. Thanks for asking.
What You Say: I don’t have much of a plan yet, but I’m going to work part time and save up some money while I try to apply for jobs.
What They Ask: Why don’t you just start working? That’s what my Jamie is doing, just jumping right into her career. If you’re not up to that, maybe get an internship in the city?
What You Think: Great idea! Why don’t I just start working? That’s a brilliant plan! I hear they’re just handing jobs out these days. You fucking idiot. Not only am I totally unqualified for every single job, ever, but I have no idea what the fuck I even want to do. I like your second idea though, to get an internship in the city. I can see it. I’ll walk into some random office building downtown, give them my one page resume. On it, interviewers will find that I went to several clubs once throughout college, that I have vast experience working in daycare centers, and that I majored in fucking linguistics, which means I’m a good candidate to do pretty much nothing but identify the fact that the medial consonant sound in the word “button” is called a glottal stop. It will surely put me at the top of nearly every employer’s list of applicants. I don’t know WHY I never thought of this myself. Also, fuck Jamie. Nobody likes a showoff.
What You Say: Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll definitely look into that.
What They Ask: Yes, you should! Then all you’ll have to do is meet a nice guy to settle down and have kids with, right?
What You Think: I have spent four long years running away from every nice guy I’ve ever met and have drunkenly fellated my way into an unmarriable rabbit hole. I have an overwhelming and stifling fear of commitment and have no idea how to take care of myself, let alone anyone else. The idea of ruining my life, not to mention my vagina, with a child sounds like my own personal hell, and I’ve lived through a dry recruitment with seniors bitching for no reason other than the fact that they’re depressed, much like I am now. I’ve worked hard at fucking up for four years in school. I’m not even up to failing to find a suitable husband to take me off my parent’s hands in a timely manner yet, because I’m too busy failing to find a job and make something of myself. Besides, last I checked, when you’re a bride at 22, you’re a fat, lonely, divorcee with a pill habit at 38. I know that was the path that you chose, but it’s not for everyone.
What You Say: I guess that’s how it goes!
What They Say: Well, good luck with all of that and congratulations on graduating!
What You Think:Go fuck yourself!
What You Say: Thanks!
Nice Move199
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Veronica Ruckh
Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at veronica@grandex.co
@VeronicaRuckh
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