This semester has brought my life to a crossroads. The prospect of graduating from college is daunting, and it appears I have some serious choices to make in the coming months. Everybody seems to start asking you things like: ""What are you going to do with that major?"" and, ""How are you going to pay the bills?"" and ""Can I get fries with that?"" These are all legitimate questions, each I've spent a lot of time thinking over.
A few of them are easy to answer. For example, ""Yes, but get the ones from the value menu."" Others have answers that aren't so clear (or frugal). After much deliberation and consultation with my loving family, I think I've come up with a long-term plan for my future.
I'm skipping the working world and going directly into retirement.
Everyone says 60 is the new 50 and so on, so why can't 21 be the new 65? It's a golden opportunity for me to get out there and do nothing while I still have time.
There are many reasons behind this decision, but the principle one is what an awesome old man I believe I can be. I'll spend my days sitting on a porch in a rocking chair whittling with a piece of grass dangling out of my mouth.
Most of my conversations will involve talking about how much better things were ""back in the day."" Even though things haven't really changed, the beauty of being old is no one can disagree with you without being considered disrespectful. I will continue to say whatever I please, and instead of being considered a stubborn jerk, people will shrug their shoulders and say I'm simply ""stuck in my ways.""
Any younger person is a whippersnapper, and no joke can be told too many times. Like a retiring English teacher I once had, I will complain about my ""furniture problems""—the tendency for my chest to fall into my drawers—as many times as I can still get a laugh out of it. Pity laughs are not only accepted, but encouraged.
I see all these graduates starting to look for jobs and I can't seem to figure out why. It seems like a job is just a fancy way of saying they have to wake up early and rush off just to sit in traffic listening to radio hosts giggle about their most recent trip to the dentist. Then they have to take crap from some low-level management type who projects his anger about losing the office fantasy football pool onto them.
No thanks—I'll take my daily 12 hours of sleep instead. When you're as old as I will be, getting enough rest is important. But never fear, I won't be sleeping my day away. With all the new time on my hands, I'll need to take up new hobbies to keep busy and pass the time. Can you say magnet collection!?
Of course, now that I'm joining the ""60 Minutes"" crowd, it doesn't seem like I should clean the house or do laundry anymore. I've worked my whole life—now it's time for me to relax! I'll hire a maid and go on vacations where I will demand everything be priced at discounted senior rates. I haven't decided whether I'll start wearing Depends, though.
I'll hire the kid down the street to mow my lawn and give him a quarter for his efforts. He'll think I don't know any better because when I was young a quarter was a lot. Secretly I'll know I'm ripping him off, but I'll delight in the fact that he won't be able to say anything about it, the whippersnapper!
