Fiction.

Somewhere in our storied 260 years of higher education history Americans decided that college was no longer for sharpening the mind and advancing human knowledge. No longer! College is now for drinking beers, throwing parties, and doin’ chicks. For four — or in my case six — years hormonal teenagers live in an unsupervised, alcohol soaked, reality-free bubble. College does not prepare you for any work place (other than, maybe, Hooters) that I’m familiar with. Classes, GPA’s, magna-this-or-the-other: it’s all basically a load of bullshit.

Here, however, is something that most certainly is not bullshit: real life — life after college — sucks. Real life is full of bills, laundry, divorced women who feel the need to tell you all about their ex-husbands, and pants that don’t fit anymore.

Seriously, I’ve had to buy all new pants.

Specifically, my real life is full of a job at a State owned server farm just outside of Blacksburg in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. I live in town six blocks from an apartment where I once witnessed three girls box each other unconscious wearing nothing but chocolate pudding. I ride the bus to work and sit in the same seat I hurled all over sophomore year after a rousing night of Edward Forty Hands. You can still see the stain; it’s shaped like a potato. Basically, every facet of my life reminds me of how the best days of my life are gone forever. Like, seriously, forever.

It’s not even like I’ve moved on to better days filled with excitement and challenge. No, I’ve moved on to Junior Help Desk Ticket Manager, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with Help Desk Tickets or managing if my daily routine is any indication. The job sucks, and they misspelled my name on my access badge: “Kaiser D. Sexilly.” Honestly. It’s “Saxille.” I’ve been called worse than sexilly, I suppose.

Shit, in this town it doesn’t even matter if you do things sexily or not. If you buy the drinks, the ladies — using the term loosely here — will drink them. And let’s face it: feed a college girl enough G&T’s and they’ll be up for anything. Sure, I can’t find a steady girlfriend that is my age, has a job, and isn’t in college, but I keep busy. It’s not as great as it sounds (it sounds fantastic though). Believe me, you can only handle five or six dozen overly tanned denim miniskirted females before you start to get bored.

Summary: the job sucks, the ladies suck but lack substance, and the town is excellent canon by which to measure just how far I’ve fallen. Which is why I’ve decided to get out of this place for a week or two. I’m leaving for Richmond tomorrow to attend a funeral. It’s a depressing reason to leave but, at this point, I’ll take it.

The dead man, the deceased, or whatever, is Chris Dennis. He played the drums for this excellent Dave Matthews cover band, Because of Dave Matthews, and lived with me and this other guy my sophomore year. He drowned yesterday while swimming in the river with a group of people out tubing. At some point he disappeared, but no one noticed when or where. Later that day his body washed up under a bridge.

Depressing.

Getting out of Blacksburg is going to be great, but I’m not overly excited about spending two weeks in Richmond — I’ve spent enough time there. I’m staying with my sister and her hipster husband Dan. I’d better get ready for a weekend with Bright Eyes. Tattoos, tight pants, and bad mustachios are why I left Richmond in the first place.