For the Graduating Class of '94
Graduation. A wise man once defined it as the point in time when one stops existing as a student and begins getting mail asking to donate to the latest alumni fund drive.
But oh, what a sight it is to watch this year's seniors, donning their graduation caps with cute little messages on them, as they end their undergraduate years of study by singing their school song, listening to inspirational speeches and then finally saying their good-byes to fellow classmates and close friends who, just four years ago, were all but complete strangers.
It's really quite sad.
Those graduation caps, I mean.
C'mon, let's try and be original this year, eh? Dear Class of 1994, please don't subject your parents, faculty and fellow classmates to caps that read, "What job?", "Will work for food!" or "Now What?" It's been done for years, decades, aeons. Why do you think Halley's Comet only comes around once every 75 years? It can't stand to see the same things written on graduation caps every year, that's why.
A wise man once said, "If you're going to take the time to say something on a cardboard hat covered in ugly nylon material, at least say it well!" I don't think "Hire Me!" was what he had in mind.
So, for you manly men out there who plan on writing the word "Beer" on your cap-hey, no one's going to think you're funny, and no one's going to think you're a creative genius, although your parents may recognize an improvement in your spelling since high school.
And you ladies who think it's cool to put your Greek sorority symbols on your caps: why not just write, "I think I'm mighty grand." That's what everyone thinks you're thinking, anyway.
"Thanks Mom and Dad" is a nice message to put on your cap, but why not spring for the dollar and a half and get them a greeting card, instead? Then you'll be free to write something much more entertaining, such as a cap I saw last year that read, ''Huh?" Oh, how I laughed and laughed!! (Gosh, I'm still kicking myself for not having the brain power to have thought of it first.)
Beginning to feel the pressure? Good. Here's a few tips:
* Besides your senior portrait, your cap may be your only chance to get in your yearbook. Unfortunate, but true. It happened to me. There were 285 pages in my yearbook, and I didn't appear until page 268. Even then, you couldn't tell it was me, just my cap. A female student who didn't even attend my college had a large color close-up in my yearbook. I got crank.
* You'll want to do your best on your cap, because you never know when someone is going to look at it, laugh heartily, and then offer you a late night talk show. Hey, stranger things have happened. (Conan O'Brien joke here.)
* If you can fit the words "Sodium Carboxymethylcellulose" on your cap, you'll be sure to win over the crowd at your graduation ceremony. Especially if you sit next to the guy wearing the cap that reads, "Beer."
But enough about graduation caps! This is a special occasion, and special occasions deserve special advice. Not necessarily from me, but since I wasn't asked to speak at anyone's graduation ceremony this year (Hint, Class of '95), I thought I might write a few words on what I would have said.
First, to next year's graduating Class of '95 (the best graduating class ever, I might add)-be patient, your time will come. In the meantime, don't pull a Nathan Mecham. Mr. Mecham was an underclassman at Snow College in Utah who had too much free time on his hands last December. He told police he was trying to "liven up a boring week."
Unfortunately, Mecham chose to do so by setting off three bombs on campus. And by "bombs," I don't mean the results of a nice, large, bean burrito. Luckily, no one was hurt, but there was $1,200 in damage.
Personally, I believe Nathan was the victim in all this, suddenly going crazy after being forced to attend his brother's college graduation just a few short months earlier, where he was exposed to nearly 75 graduation caps all reading, "4 Hire."
Now, to this year's graduating seniors...
A Guide to Live By
If you truly believe in yourself and your work, be ready to accept fate when you find yourself at 35 years of age still riding the bus to work while your old college roommate, the one whose blood-alcohol level was higher than his GPA all four years of school, owns his own gambling casino and a place in the Caribbean.
If you hold your ground and stand up for what you believe in from day one, you will win the respect of your boss and the admiration of your co-workers. But only after you've thrown a large file cabinet down a stairwell in protest for being fired for standing up for what you believed in (in my case, a mandatory wet bar attached to my desk).
If you work hard at your new job and put in plenty of overtime, including weekends, in order to "go the extra mile," you'll be pleased to find that in no time at all your friends will stop calling or stopping by your place to ask if you'd like to go out with them, leaving you with even more free time to finish up even more work, until you've not only "gone the extra mile," but you're in the "midst of a marathon," a.k.a, "The Rat Race."
If you save all your earnings in life, opting not to go on expensive vacations, own new cars or take part in any evening activity more expensive than a night at the movies, you'll succeed in dying a very rich individual.
And then your kids, who never had a proper education due to your cheap, penny-pinching ways, in no time will spend all your money on such extravagant investments as the World's Largest Ball of Lint and later, in an unfortunate move, the World's Largest Vacuum Cleaner.
If you should come home from work one day, and sit down in your favorite chair to watch your favorite television show while enjoying a bottle of your favorite beer, and suddenly say to yourself, "Gosh, I'm successful," then that is as successful as you'll become. If, instead, you should sit down in that same favorite chair, with that same favorite television show and that same favorite bottle of beer, and say, "Gosh, I'm pathetic!" then you're pathetic. Moral of the story: Don't come home after work.
If you someday (tomorrow, for instance) forget everything you've already read in this so-called "Guide to Life" at least remember this: the only living things in this world who are satisfied with anything less than their very best effort are cats and Grateful Dead followers. Neither smell very good.
On the other hand, neither wear graduation caps with the words "Hire me" on them, either. Best of luck.
Patrick Holland is part of this nutritious breakfast. Unfortunately, the same can be said of Sodium Carboxymethylcellulose.