Johnny Ayndoshet, graduating with a B.A. in B.S., and a minor in V.D., — congratulations on your success!

As grown-up Johnny walks off the stage with that prized paper in his hand, I hope he’ll remember to thank all those easy-A professors and inflated test scores that got him where he is today! At the bottom of the stairs with a 2.0 GPA, blurry memories of Tony’s, a few hundred fewer brain cells, a penchant for the phrase “um … like” and a piece of paper to prove it was worth it. Congratulations, Johnny, you really pulled one over the system! You just paid over 15 grand to let 151 wash half your wits away, AND you STILL got a diploma!

Registration day’s got everyone talking about how they got off easy by fulfilling their ‘A’ GenEd with a 200-person lecture they didn’t have to attend thanks to that oh-so generous curve. Or that bullshit anthropology class they took that was at 1:15 instead of the sociology class that sounded good at 8:30, but skipped out on because it would interrupt their drinking schedule. As fun as it is to wobble home after a night of a little public hanky-pank on a Tuesday, it’s not worth wasting 40 hours a semester doodling your name with stars around it because ratemyprofessor.com said that Professor Burgess was a 1.0 in Easy. (Work? Reading?? Learning??? No0o0o0o!!!)

GenEds are there for a reason — not everyone goes into school with their futures laid out year by year in Excel. The whole point is to explore and maybe even find a career that won’t make you want to stab yourself with the industrial sized company stapler (those things can’t reach any major organs anyway). I just don’t understand the point in willingly throwing away your time, meanwhile complaining about not having enough of it. Everyone has interests, so why not pursue them instead of blindly marching toward a degree so you can sit in your stuffy cubicle with your stapler, a stack of meaningless papers and a beer belly full of regrets that can’t be put into words because you took a film class instead of Rhetoric 344 and now lack the necessary eloquence to express your anguish.

I’m not saying you can’t have fun in college; obviously this is a large part of the American dream. I am saying that fun doesn’t have to replace learning. It feels good to accomplish something and then get wasted. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it even feels better than going to anthro stoned, eating, sleeping and then getting wasted. So reach forward, brush off that dusty ol’ hippocampus (it’s between the untouched Music 101 book and the Blueberry yum-yum) and put it back in its place.

So I praise all of you carefree, apparent-geniuses who don’t need to go to class to be smart, and I give this ode to the oblivious as a congratulatory trophy. Now you have something else to show for your lack of ambition! Last one to the bar’s a rotten egg!