Credible degrees not so hot; it’s sexier to fool around

Ben Lee Handler Handler was the 2001-2002
Viewpoint sex columnist.  

The average American will live about 80 years. Granted, no
graduating UCLA student will settle for average anything, but after
all is said and done, most of our lives are more than a quarter
over, and eighty is creeping ever closer, even as you read this.
So, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Grad
school? That’s 1/15th-1/8th of your remaining time on Earth.
A job? Hell, you can ride that straight to the grave.

If I’ve learned anything in my 6.25 percent of a lifetime
here, its been to minimize the work and maximize the fun, and make
the minimal amount of work I’m forced to complete as fun as
possible (although writing the occasional six-page essay with a
hangover and a half-erection from the previous night’s
festivities will always be painful).

These are the best days of our lives, we’re told. Why wait
until we’re weak-kneed, hard-of-hearing and senile to enjoy
their fruits?

“But the party’s over now,” you say. “No
one will hire a liberal arts student, let alone an English student
with a specialization in creative writing. You’ve been spent
at an early age, you’ll perish at the hands of a pointless
education.”

To which I reply: You are soo wrong.

While all you “smart” kids with “real”
degrees are busy dying your ways through law school and med school
and teacher’s credential programs, I will be serving the
public something absolutely necessary for life to flourish: food.
And from this artery of general consumption, I will siphon off more
than my share of the life’s blood, becoming fat in the
process.

I will be the charming waiter with the offbeat hair, wowing your
spouse with talk of my novel-in-progress and tickling your
only-slightly underage children. I will be the reason your
significant other asks if you’ve ever thought about writing
or art or anything creative while you’re up late reviewing
medical journals instead of making love, and I will be the reason
your kids grease their hair with pomade and experiment with sex and
drugs. I will be the one your family is looking for when they sneak
out of your house at night in search of the living.

I am a liver, unjaundiced by any of the toxins a credible degree
will sap your life away with.