Three years ago my high school deemed me qualified to venture into the Real World, to enter the workforce, and if so desired, to become President or whatever. I emerged from its warm sticky embrace much like a newborn wrenched violently from his mother’s womb, forced to adapt to a bright, loud not-womb, that smelled too much like a nightmare and not enough like fish. I existed as a pure soul, an unadulterated saint of the state’s design. The posters reminding us of the merits of compassion, loyalty, and honesty had created the perfect being. It was me!
    Upon deciding to pursue an education at UC Santa Cruz, I followed up with a promise to use my perfect moral bone structure for good, and to spread the gospel to all who would and wouldn’t hear it. Like so many dreams, this one was crushed by the Real World’s ridiculous characters, and soundtrack. The insidious influence of other people’s children proved too great, and my immorality cherry was not so much popped as shoved off a cliff and detonated in the water with no apparent casualties.
    Fresh off the boat, I learn that in the first two months of the college experience, a smokin’ hot hallmate’s loving and tragically hopeful high school sweetheart is nothing more than an obnoxious chunk of nostalgia. The sooner that you and your soul mate realize this, the sooner you can begin exploring each others’ bodies and musical tastes. The longevity of such relationships often depends on your opinion of Sigur Rós’ “music.”
    Wham bam, thank you Dan, and we come a little too quickly to the archaic taboo on premarital sex. Birthed by scientists who hate you, the myth that premarital sex destroys lives is just plain false. The Syph hasn’t killed anyone in decades, and herpes are just God’s little stamps of approval of your lifestyle. As for the really, really, really awkward prospect of premature parenthood, the aforementioned anti-You scientists have developed a slew of ultra-secret contraceptive strategies to fuel their own sinful lust. The scale of this deception may seem inconceivable, but that’s entirely the point. Apply yourself, and you may just be able to prevent my kid’s crack dealer from ever being born.
    Between rampant sexual deviancy and narrowly averting a “moral boner” joke, my complete disavowal of my upbringing was nearly complete. The fast-moving and unpredictable world of a 15,000-student campus teaches you a thing or two about the importance of the “vice” of addiction. Without that stable and inevitable fix, how can you possibly trust anything around you? Toking up before class actually improves your learning experience, and if you’ve been drinking less than the requisite 15 beers on the weekend you deserve to have no friends, prude. I’m going to have to make a distinction here between substance abuse and responsible and moderate use of drugs and alcohol. Acceptable drinking habits include getting sloshed to score hotties or to tolerate your politics prof’s self-righteous bullshit. A drinking no-no might be waking up next to your bed on the ground, way eff-in’ early, and pouring your half-empty bottle of schnapps on your roommate’s newly acquired The Fonz alarm clock just because it yells, “Heyyy!” at 7:00 in the morning and I didn’t even have class that day. Everything in moderation, folks.
    If you’re the clever type, you’ve observed that not only does this article read the same backwards as forwards, but that I also must have been underage to drink in the dorms. As a minor under the influence of what surely must be the blood of Christ himself, I had broken the law. Already a fugitive, I turned toward petty theft to make ends meet. That pen used to be the property of Longs Drugs, chumpzillas. I’d been getting robbed for years by the government, by the university, by that smug lady in the red hat and purple shirt …who knows exactly what she did…so what was the harm in fighting stealing with armed stealing? Absolutely nothing.
While officially a legal trespass, robbery clearly falls under the “Finders, Keepers” clause of most states’ property laws. Venturing into the seedy underworld of civil disobedience is quite a different proposition. During a cease-fire, the vampires and werewolves suggested to me that the law is not always the highest moral authority. I had the opportunity to speak with an expert on the issue, a proud member of the recent protest against military recruiters on campus. Though his fetching bandana-mask suggested otherwise, he assured me he was not a terrorist. He explained that in intentionally breaking the law, one yells defiantly, “This law is unjust!” His penetrating comments reminded me of the Tent U revolutionaries who also realized they weren’t actually prepared to get arrested. I told Billy the Kid that his point was dulled considerably by his fearful anonymity, but his panicked and dogmatic retaliation made me regret it. As much as that guy sucked, I couldn’t fault him for living what he believes. I could fault him, however, for forgetting to zip up his fly, which I giggled about later.
    It seems that in less than three years I’d become morally bankrupt, and the college experience was to blame. I’d already come to terms with the fact that I’d be giving toothy blowjobs in Hell for all eternity, but get this – I just checked the website, and I’m actually still signed up for Heaven. Perhaps my values haven’t been compromised at all; perhaps they’ve just been reevaluated. Someone else had muddled the moral complexities of existence, and in only three short years I’d sorted them all out. Thank God I’ve learned something. I’d hate not being better than you.