Chuckle #448 | April 13th, 2011
Toga Parties & Other Temporal Pursuits
If there is one thing I’ve learned from visiting colleges with my son, it is that college is totally wasted on the young. Campus tour guides clearly have a sadistic streak. They make college sound SO AWESOME, that I want to go back – forget about sending my kids.
After hearing all about college life today, which at most schools seems to include a “Condom Carnival”, I honestly don’t think I made the most of my college experience the first time around.
I certainly didn’t pay enough attention (given what’s going on in the world) to my famous professor of Iran/Iraq Relations. It is possible that I spent too much of my time trying to figure out what fluid mixes best with cheap vodka and agitating for a new waffle maker for the cafeteria. You know, the important stuff.
And I was one of the more “academic” kids on campus.
How many 18 year olds are really ready for a great “intellectual awakening”? How many 45 year olds are? Comparatively speaking, a lot. We old folks would lap college life up. We’re ready to do college all over again. We are starved for intellectual stimulation and are tired of dinner parties dominating our social scene.
Whatever happened to tiki bars and toga parties? When exactly did life become so darn civilized?
Picture us back at college…
“Ding Dong” dorm party tonight? No thanks, my back is acting up and I’ve got that big Beowulf recital tomorrow. Old English bites.
Panty Raid? Sorry, I’m going to that lecture at the Women’s Center “Hermaphrodite Heroes of the Civil War”.
Martini pong tournament on Tuesday? Now you’re talking. What time?
Yeah, college sure would be different at age 47, and not just because I can’t keep my eyes open past 11PM.
My parents spent a lot of cold hard cash to send me to college, and I’m about to do the same thing for my kids. I sure hope they understand what an incredible gift this is, and savor/maximize every moment. I wish I had. Or maybe I did, but I just can’t remember.
The problem with youth is that it is so FLEETING. The problem with middle age is that it is tinged with regret.
Going back to college may SOUND appealing, but to be honest, I really don’t want to pull any all-nighters, write any 30 page papers, or be put on the spot in a seminar class full of smug valedictorian braniacs.
Would I really be capable of cramming 300 dense pages of a professor’s self-published textbook, then expounding intelligently on the underlying themes? I have my doubts.
I think I could sate this “back to school” urge by auditing a college class or two. I’ll be that creepy old person sitting in the front row of the lecture hall, looking eager. FYI, I’ll be the only one not taking notes on a tablet.
A few of my friends are also pining to return to school, but not as students. Their plan is to go back as professors. Of course they want to be the “cool” professor who gets invited out for beers by their students.
Or they’re really well liked, maybe even to the condom carnival.
