Insignificance deserves recognition

I blame The Bruin for a lot of things. I blame The Bruin for
robbing me of my free time. I blame The Bruin for landing me a
full-time job even before I graduate ““ leaving me without
three months of sitting on my parents’ ridiculously
comfortable couch or backpacking through Europe (which I have yet
to visit), seeing the world and “finding myself.”

Lately though, I blame The Bruin for revealing my
insignificance. Today is my last day of work (I’m writing
this June 6); tomorrow will be the last time my name ever appears
in this newspaper (except for the bold text next to my picture
right here); and probably nobody ever noticed my name was here to
begin with (though it was here twice nearly every day).

The walls of the Daily Bruin office are littered with typed-up
quotes from funny moments in our life here. Most people who
weren’t there for the moment ask others what was going on
when it was said, and the retelling of the event is usually enough
to get everyone laughing just because we all know how conversations
can go between midnight and 2 a.m. in this windowless, A.C.-less
office inside Kerckhoff Hall.

There are a lot of quotes still up from last year, some from
departed editors, and the older among us tell tales of those who
have moved on after graduation. I assume my numerous quotes will
remain next year, and there will still be people (hopefully) to
think back fondly of me and what I have done here.

But as the years pass and the movie of my life goes into a
montage of calendar pages being pulled off and discarded, someone
will decide to take down my quotes, the pictures of me and my
friends will be thrown in the trash, and no one will remember that
once, the people I worked with here were dedicated to the point of
ruining ourselves.

In the years to come, I’ll remember the misery of working
late in the stuffy-as-hell office trying to do 10 things at once
within the next 20 minutes.

But the people taking my place won’t remember that. In the
years to come, people will strip this office of any memory of
me.

To that future Bruin staff, looking through the archives,
sitting on the couch forgetting me, I have one thing to say:
That’s balls.

E-mail Dillon at [email protected] if you thought this
column was balls, or if you are from the future and have forgotten
about him.