Graduation Etiquette

Something strange happens to your mind as you get older. For some bizarre reason, when you hit middle age, all of a sudden any manner of stupid, pointless ceremony takes on a grave new importance. Case in point: Columbia's class day, which is the day when they — and by "they," I mean someone whose life is apparently much more valuable than mine — call the names of all the graduating students. One by one, we each walk up on stage when the almighty calls us, and we shake the president's hand or the dean's hand or a trustee's hand or, for all I know, it could be Pauly Shore's hand. I believe at a normal school, this is when that somebody would hand me my degree, but to be honest, shaking a thousand hands is more than enough work for him, and we pick up our degrees the next day.

In case you haven't fully grasped this, here's the situation from the senescents' point of view. The old people are sitting in the audience, listening to the names of a thousand strangers, like a veterans' memorial, waiting for one so they can duly applaud. (Ten to one some college bureaucrat asks them to hold their applause till the end.) From my point of view, I'm listening to the class president or valedictorian or some other monstrously arrogant prick dweeb fawning over a thousand people I don't even like, and I have to smile and pretend to be happy while inside I'm convinced that if God existed, some people would be getting hit by lightning bolts.

This goes on for three interminable hours, and to put that in perspective, the Daytime Emmy awards only go on for two and a half. I thought, "Hey, why don't I bring a book? At least that way I won't have to pay attention." I told my parents (always a mistake) and they looked at me as if I told them I was going to walk on stage and tear the still-beating heart out of President Bollinger's chest cavity, pour mustard on it, and eat it in front of the whole senior class. I might still bring a book, but needless to say, I didn't get their blessing. I'm just glad I didn't suggest bringing my Game Boy.

And this is the difference between a rational twenty-two year old and an Old Person. I don't see what the big deal is, and they think that my reading will ruin the entire commencement ceremony. (I probably have the advantage here thinking that there's pretty much nothing I can do that will make commencement worse than it already is.) Their petulance is goddamn frustrating, especially when I can make this money-back guarantee: there will be some jackass graduating this year who when his name is called is gonna get up on stage and raise the roof or do a cartwheel or do something else phenominally retarded that he saw Snoop Dogg do in a video — and I also guarantee it's gonna be a white kid acting like his brain just spent the past year in a self-tanning booth — and all of the other football-playing vodka-drinking slut-fucking fart-lighting morons graduating with me are gonna cheer for him.... and if I bring a book it'll ruin the ceremony???? Please.

I should've gone to an all-girls school, like Mom wanted me to go to Smith.

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Addendum: I was going to read Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections at class day, but then I realized that I'd have to get up on stage and I might not be able to get back to my seat to retrieve the book. So, new plan: I'm gonna class up the ceremony by bringing a copy of the National Enquirer and a copy of Weekly World News, reading about Oprah's weight and five-headed martians attacking Kansas.