Because I am officially having a mid-life crisis I went on-line to print out a copy of my college transcripts in an attempt to cobble some sort of workable degree out of that mess. Given the terrible and unrelenting march of time, I was unable to access them easily and had to call University Tech Support for backup.

“Well, let’s just see what the problem is,” said a nice man on the other side of the phone who, thankfully did not sound twelve-years-old, or whatever age college students are nowadays, “What was your computer password when you were a student?”

I snorted into the phone, quickly recovered and informed him that when I went to college I, in fact, brought along an electric typewriter so….computer password? Not so much.

Thankfully, we got it all smoothed out and with my new password was able to print off page after page of my collegiate history.

“Holy smokes,” Hubby said disbelievingly, “I always assumed that you were joking when you talked about how many credits you had!”

Here’s the thing, I was in college on and off for eight years. I was excellent at college. Excellent. What I was terrible at was graduating.

“You took Chorus for three terms?  Technical Theater? Ballroom dance?! PIANO?!”

“They were electives!” I huffed, defending myself.

“Should we count up your electives?”

I put my head on the table. “No.”

So, electives I got. What I don’t have is any math or science. Utilizing my blinding charm, I managed to bluff my way into upper-level Women’s Studies and Lit classes (which are NOT required for graduation) despite having never taken the pre-requisites (which totally are.) I took enough art classes to fulfill the requirements for a Studio Arts degree and then withdrew from my senior project THREE TIMES. Out of a total of 200+ credits, I managed a two year Sign Language Interpreting degree and I don’t even DO that, anymore.

I paid those student loans off for YEARS. I think we finally got rid of them when we refinanced the house, so in reality, I’m still paying them off…dumb….dumb…dumb….

My only solace is that this is not a mistake Miss Teen Wonder will be able to make. If you tried to do some bone-headed move like that now, you would never get away with it. Right around your third year, when you logged into the registration website and chose Glass-blowing, The History of Cinema and Personalities in Pop Culture (all classes I would have taken, if given the chance) alarms would go off, metal security doors would automatically lock and you would NOT be allowed to leave the room until you signed up for your upper level Statistics and Science with a Lab.

I am so depressed.

I was hoping that I had three, maybe four classes left to fill in the gaps and I could skip out, degree in hand. Now it’s looking like I’d have two or more solid years of full time classes to take– the terrible, boring classes I always avoided. Karma is just kicking my butt, here.

On the upside, my electives are finished.

Hubby doesn’t think I should do this, anyways. He thinks I should just “be” a writer. You know, like you do. (Waves hand breezily.)

He is completely ignoring the fact that I already have an ideal system in place for my writing: I write things, read them to Hubby and then toss them into a pile at the side of my bed. Perfect. Maybe I’ll be that like that woman who, after she died, they found thousands of brilliant photographs in her apartment. Or, more likely, my kids will just scoop the papers up and drop them, unread, into a dumpster.

Sounds perfectly fine to me. Frankly, it’s much easier to face rejection when you’re deceased. And even better, you NEVER have to take Intro to Biology…with or without a lab.