Bobby D'Angelo
I open my phone to realize that it’s 9:55 and I’ve already missed a class, so I put about as much preparation into getting ready as the group of kids from my Middle School that wore Osiris sneakers and religiously played Halo. As I make my way to my front door, I hear what I’d argue the ASMR sounds from a college house would be: Brianna Chickenfry ranting on full-blast from my friend’s girlfriend’s phone and the deafening shots of a semi-automatic blaring from our living room. I don’t want to take anything away from our veterans, especially at a time like this, but I’d go as far as saying that sound effects coming from my roommate playing War Zone are my own version of PTSD. While the little bit of swamp-ass and the realization that I forgot to put on deodorant aren’t great, I always enjoy listening to a good podcast on my walk to class. Sometimes I play little games to keep myself entertained like: jump over every single crack in the sidewalk, count the number of crushed puff bars on the road, and do I only swipe right on Transgender people because I’m black out drunk and not paying attention or is it because I’d be down for hooking up with one beacuse giant fake tits?
I fucking hate CORE classes. I don’t know if it’s because I always get partnered with the worst kind of people, or because in my opinion, the I’m Just A Bill song is all the knowledge one needs to retain about how the government works to stay afloat at a cocktail party. Still, I find most of them to be a waste of time. As my professor in his mid-fifties arbitrates a debate between someone I assume is a leader in our campuses’ Young Republicans club and a girl who looks like the Wii Mii version of Harley Quinn, I realize that I have a laptop at my disposal. I toggle between The Ringer, Barstool, and ESPN until I have to click “B” a handful of times on my iClicker so my attendance registers. When class ends, we are called up to the front by name to see how we did on our first exam. A seventy-six? I’m 5’8, an average athlete at best, and most of my shirts have holes in them. I’m the embodiment of a seventy-six. THIS is how we start a fucking Thursday.
After my last class of the day, I could go to the library and spend a few hours on a project that’s due next Wednesday. My family is spending so much money on my education; it would be the right thing to do. BUT…then I remember that my Dad got tickets to the 2015 Wild Card game between the Yankees and Astros, and he took my brother- so I think I’ll play beer dye instead.
I think of beer dye the same way I think of golf. It’s a gentleman’s game where the minutiae amount of athletic ability required subsidizes the fact that you’ve had seven bud lights before dusk. I lose two games- the first close and the second by a lot due to the fact I’m so caught up in listening to my teammate’s theory that he’s regurgitating from Reddit about how Michelle Obama is a man undercover. Even though I lose brain cells listening to his Q Anon ass talk, I want to believe it so bad because that bitch took away pizza sticks from an entire generation of middle schoolers.
After getting home, I triple “s” and drink a monster. Tomorrow is game day, so most normal people won’t be out, seeing as we have to get up at 8 AM because 11 AM kickoffs are fucking brutal, but I’m on the prowl. It’s at a time like this when I make a once-in-a-semester call to the one kid I KNOW is going out. Every friend group has one. I’d rather ask the five foot four guy that strictly wears “Rogue” tee-shirts at my gym about his cryptocurrency investments than hang out with him sober, but he’s rarely sober. That’s the point. He answers after two rings and tells me he’s buying whip-its, then he’s in route.
When he finally arrives, we stuck down a few tall boys and deliberate our moves for the night amongst judgment from my fellow roommates. With a Xanax prescription and a drinking problem, this kid is the Shohei Ohtani of people that I surround myself with to forget about my ex-girlfriend. We land on going to a bar where excited underclassmen frequent because getting fucked up every night is still exciting to them. I volunteer to call the first Uber because something about my companion for the night drinking malt-liquor tells me he was expecting me to make the call. We skip the line easily because the bouncer is in a lab with me and walk past a sea of hopeful young adults carrying fake IDs and wallet condoms that won’t ever get used. The bar makes me nostalgic about when I had that much enthusiasm for going out (and life itself). My sidekick is already mid-way through explaining to a group of underclassmen girls that he got kicked out of his fraternity, but I can still show up to tailgates and shit. It’s actually pretty dope; they’re still all my boys.
After two hours of sweating and hearing the same Tiesto songs I’ve heard for the last two and a half years, I strike a conversation up with a cute blonde girl who is asking the same three stupid ass questions all freshman ask. As she’s putting her Snapchat into my phone, I make a joke from 2010 classic The Other Guys about my LIT (Arnie-Palmy alert). She replies, what haha. “The Other Guys? You’ve never seen it?” I have no idea what you’re talking about. Then, it dawns on me that I need to go home and leave this post 9/11 iPad baby to her business. I turn to look for my friend; apparently, we don’t share the same concern about hooking up with girls that think Tamagotchi is an appetizer at her favorite Asian-Fusion restaurant.
When I walk in the door of my house, I explode some Chilli in our microwave and go to sleep with The Other Guys on. God damn, that movie is a classic, and god damn, getting old sucks.
