My life, low prices, slightly used, inquire below

“The couch you may have, but the plant I want to keep. It was a gift from my mom for my 21st birthday.”

This is the type of conversation I’ve been having around my apartment lately whenever friends or strangers are over.

“Do you need 30 slightly used T-shirts?”

No one needs or wants slightly used T-shirts, in any amount, I’ve found.

I’m a graduating senior, I have to worry about things like am I or am I not going to graduate, will I ever get a job, will I ever see my friends again and will I be able to make any new ones after I graduate.

Instead, I’m trying to make sure my couch gets a good home.

Dammit.

Walking through Tom Thumb the other day, my grocery list said that I needed mayonnaise. Not a big deal normally, but the big jar of it I usually buy doesn’t really seem necessary now. The refrigerator has to be cleaned out in two weeks, so what’s the point of buying some now just to throw most of it away? I considered not buying any at all, but since a sandwich isn’t a sandwich without that tangy zip, I got the smallest size. Why should I live like a savage, sans condiments, just because I’m leaving the place I’ve called home for the past four years, forever?

This is the kind of thing I’m thinking about as I approach the biggest transition of my life. The best thing about being a senior is that after graduation you can literally do anything you want. Sleep all the time, party, travel, work, panhandle, anything you want.

There are actually consequences now though, and that might be the scariest part about leaving academia.

You can do anything you feel like, but right now a lot of seniors are doing the same thing. Finishing up papers, crying, staring at the wall for hours, searching the want ads or self-medicating. It’s all pretty much the same.

I’m medicating because my back hurts.

Freshman year I started a policy that required I save every book that was for my major or minor or the bookstore wouldn’t buy back. Since we’re all pretty well acquainted with what the bookstore is like, you can imagine how many books I have.

One book isn’t that heavy when it’s in a bag strapped over your shoulders. Put 50 in a cardboard box though and you feel like Sisyphus, exerting yourself physically and needlessly.

In addition to my boxes of books, I’ve got piles of all the stuff I’ve accumulated in the past four years. This is an incredible amount of papers and knickknacks. The stuff that best constitutes the past four years though, saved computer files of old papers, mp3’s and snapshots all fit in a shoebox. It’s really weird how that works. Remember “Mambo #5,” by Lou Bega? Songs like that are the real reason Napster got shut down.

The problem is that I’ve always assumed that by the time one graduates from college everything makes sense and one knows exactly what to do. Assumptions are worthless.

I’ve never functioned in society in any way but as a student, so the next few months will be weird. I’m also cut off from my parents financially, which sucks.

The bottom line is that I’m now a college graduate, in America, with no debt. Things aren’t too bad – they’re just different. Things are exciting.

Would anyone like to take some used Yaffa Blocks off my hands? It seems like such a waste to just throw them away.