Nothing against retail

Palpitating rhythms and inappropriate car honks followed by choruses of “woo”-ing. The air is saturated with the deceptively heavy aroma of lilac, grilling meat, and beer. Make your way around the chutes and ladders side streets of collegeland and be accosted by scantily clad students, set free with the pent-up ferocity of wild beasts. People hanging lazily off porches and railings for simply the act of it. Playing yard games reserved for the elderly and the idle. This could only mean one thing: the end of the semester.

The release has been replaced by nerves, the anticipation by fear. This is it. The real world. Does it start the day after graduation? Or in the fall when instead of heading off to class I head off to work a dead-end job because the one I wanted a) didn’t want me b) wanted too much c) will call you, don’t call us. What should be easy isn’t after all. What should be a given is a fight ever step of the way. The new college grad is unemployed, in debt, and drowning. I want to blame the current political situation (thanks G.W. for doing such a bang up job), I want to blame myself (of course you would pick English. WTF were you thinking?), I want to blame everyone who has a job already (Could you just, like, die or something?).

I wish someone had told me the dream job I was going to school for doesn’t exist. That writing one best-seller a year in the foothills of Spain, while maintaining a reclusive mystique and not having to pay taxes doesn’t generally work out for people. Generally. But Pottery Barn is hiring. I wish I had known college was insular poverty and the real poverty is yet to come.

And then Pottery Barn calls. And yes, you are willing to work nights and weekends. And you are interested in starting as soon as possible. And, somehow, you are excited because you will take whatever you can get. And just like that, you found your dream job.