And so it begins...

Considering my high school graduating class had a grand total of 70 people in it, graduating with a college class of over 4,000 took a little longer than I had anticipated. Sitting twenty-some rows back from the stage in the same arena I had seen Rob Zombie, Incubus, Chingy, and Ja Rule, in between two people I only vaguely knew from the few times I actually showed up to class, I really wasn't paying much attention to the motivational speeches intended to "jump start" my entrance into adulthood.

Quite honestly, the cheap Josten's polyester robe was making me sweaty and chaffy (is that a word?), and sitting on sticky sweaty ass for three hours kind of dampens the thrill of the culmination of four years of hard work.

I won't lie. I didn't really work THAT hard in college. I showed up to class maybe half to 75% of the time, rarely took notes, occasionally slept, and frequently texted people from my discreet seat, usually somewhere in the third or fourth row. Yet when test time came around, or final papers and projects were due, I always came through in the clutch. It was the double-edged sword that was my blessing and my curse. On the positive side, I was graduating college as valedictorian of my department and in four years to boot. But on the other hand, here I was, graduating with a very expensive piece of paper that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with it. For all I was concerned, I was content being a waitress with part-time hours, full-time income, and no drug testing.

And so, with as much pomp and circumstance as I'd applied to the four years leading up to that evening, I graduated college with a pocket full of dreams, only minimal brain damage from four years of binge drinking, and looming student loans that were approaching as ominously as a geriatric in a mobilized Wal-Mart wheelchair.

Who knew that four months after graduating from one of the largest universities in the country I'd be sitting, equally as bored and annoyed, in the public assistance office.

I was flanked by a very large woman with three children under the age of five, all running around screaming (which I can't help but assume they learned from her, as much as she was screaming at them) and a man who smelled a lot like our kitchen when I let the dishes go about a week without washing. I sat there with my $400 Coach purse, my Tiffany bracelet (a graduation gift), and my carefully manicured toes, wondering how the hell I got here, and why it is I couldn't master the system like my current peers in waiting apparently had.

I don't know quite how I got here. But it's quite an interesting story to tell.