It used to be exclusive to my newsletter subscribers but then TinyLetter imploded!
Readers, I have a bad habit. When I’m on Facebook1 and I see some chud being a racist, I’ll just check his page for laughs2 and more often than not, he’ll claim to have attended an institution of, I’m sorry to have to say, dubious accreditation: The School of Hard Knocks. To the administrators of that hallowed hall of learning, I have only to say: SHOULDA KNOCKED ‘EM HARDER.
I don’t know how many colleges is normal, and frankly I resent the implication.
- Oregon Coast Community College, which is the single most powerful piece of identifying information I’ve ever given out in one of these, because I was there for two years and it was in a town of under ten thousand people. There was a bar called Shucker’s literally across the street that made amazing hamburgers they claimed were fried in oyster sauce, and one time I accidentally got my whole history class banned ’cause we were all under 21 and I, like a chump, thanked the owner for being cool about it, thereby alerting him to the fact. Fortunately, we had first-aid training after lunch, so I could go straight from self-snitching to self-stitching.
- Antelope Valley Community College, alma mater of both John Wayne and Frank Zappa, if you believe the folklore. It was here that I learned I love writing plays and hate directing them, bit my Deaf Studies teacher hard enough to leave a scar and didn’t learn I had done so until two years later3, and made an enemy of the sitting Mayor of a city for the second time.
- Southern New Hampshire University, the world’s only legitimate online college as long as none of you google where that professor who claimed Australia wasn’t a continent was teaching. I SAID DON’T, crikey. It’s a good school! I did a powerpoint presentation on caffeine and kept a running tally of how many Diet Cokes I had while writing it in the corner of every slide! It got me a better evaluation at work because Manny was gonna ding me points for never volunteering for overtime until I mentioned it! And gave me the Psych degree that let me make Manny cry afterward by pointing out his father never told him he loved him4!
Them’s me schools! College isn’t for everyone, but for me the whole thing, which took me almost fifteen years to accomplish across three different states, was worth it to belong to a very exclusive club:
Some may see this as without honor, conduct unbecoming of a would-be Klingon, but allow me to ask: how honorable is it to let an 18-year-old take out loans equal to more than a year of the salary it would take him until 2023 to work his way up to? Sallie Mae is a petaQ who brings dishonor to her house, and I’ll tell her to her face. WHO AMONG YOU WILL BRING ME THE FACE OF SALLIE MAE.