I Wish I Could Go Back to College

I wish I could go back to college.
Life was so simple back then.
I wish I could go back to college.
In college you know who you are.
You sit in the quad, and think, "Oh my God!
I am totally gonna go far!"

I know I'm in grad school, but it's really not the same thing. One of my best friends, Lass (she's half-Irish - even has duel citizenship so how 'bout them apples), and I were reminiscing about the fun we had when we lived together. We were roommates for two years in college and had a total blast.

Our diet consisted of Bagel Bites, cheese balls (yes, the gross ones that come in a can), Cream of Wheat, hot tea and sex. Sex was a desert we almost always had in our freezer. It was this rich concoction of everything chocolate and sugary. I have no idea how we weren't 500 pounds.

We had a Magna-Doodle on the back of our front door, an idea we stole from Friends. Every day or so, we'd post a new quote. One of our favs came from an episode of That 70s Show - "Where zen ends, ass kicking begins."

Our apartment had great decorations. We had a penis puzzle above our toilet. It was the penis from the Statue of David that I brought back from Florence. Any guy that peed there had to stare at it. Our bathroom was full of yellow ducks - even the shower curtain and bath mat. Lass had a giant Maryland state flag on her wall a friend stole for her, and I had a giant cardboard poster of Madonna a friend stole for me.

Our favorite past-times included playing Mario Cart with our guy friends, watching every episode of Temptation Island with the men's lacrosse team and road trips to either the beach or the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. We once went on a road trip to Maryland, and I let my boyfriend at the time go with us. I foolishly broke up with him on the trip so we had an 8 hour ride home with him sniffling in the backseat. Amazingly, Lass forgave me for creating the most awkward car ride ever.

Our favorite bands were the Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, Blink 182, Matchbox 20, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin and...eh hem...'N Sync. We knew every word to their album "No Strings Attached." We chose a side in the Christina v. Britney battle (Britney...we chose wrong). Our favorite movies were 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knight's Tale, Drive Me Crazy, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, Outside Providence, Fight Club, Swingers and Shakespeare in Love.

We never missed an episode of Dawson's Creek because we thought Pacey and Joey were the greatest love story of all time. We boycotted the show when they broke-up, and when it ended, we taped the last episode and agreed only to watch it if Pacey and Joey had a happy ending. If they didn't end up together, we would pretend that the last ep never happened. Because they really were meant to be.

We lived near a duck pond and named our feathered friends - Buzz, Buster, Millie, Freddie and Ugly. Don't feel sorry for Ugly. He both looked and acted ugly. We briefly had a crazy cat named Pooka, who saw a ghost in one of our walls. Lass rescued a runt kitten named Squeaky Kitty, who was the most annoying creature on the planet so we gave her to the delivery guy from a Japanese restaurant. He said he knew someone with a daughter whose cat just died, and we chose to believe him.

I lived with a couple other friends my last semester, and I credit one of them with teaching me how to drink and date. I learned valuable lessons in college that I still use to this day. How to date casually, how not to get attached, how to date more than one person at the same time and how to let someone down gently (i.e. stop returning their phone calls). My friend was a bartender so I also learned that dancing on a bar could be super fun.

Yes, college was full of fun adventures and important lessons. But mostly, a lot of goofing off. I want to goof off. I want to go back to college. Whaa.

But if I were to go back to college,
Think what a loser I'd be-
I'd walk through the quad,
And think "Oh my God...
These kids are so much younger than me."