As my college career comes to a close, I am faced with the age-old question: what am I going to do when I grow up? I have been scanning the help wanted ads, and surprisingly enough I haven’t seen any ads like, say:

 "Sassy but slightly overweight humor columnist needed to distill merriment into otherwise dull life. $55,000/yr. plus benefits, like full-body oil massages and the recipe to a diet soda that doesn’t taste like butt. Ugly hair a plus."

 Fantasyland, however, is hiring. Just a heads-up.

 I thought I could postpone my entrance into the real world by going to graduate school for a few years, honing my craft, and drinking a lot of beer (the two might be interchangeable). There is still the problem, though, of those pesky eight months between when I graduate and when I reenter the world of academia.

 My plan for those months seemed simple when I came up with it—get an apartment here in Ashland (I love the night life), get some sort of gainful employment, buy a cat, and live happily ever after, eating nothing but choo-choo wheel pasta and latch-hooking pillows with the faces of cartoon characters and merry cows.

 This plan has been hampered, however, by the fact that there are no jobs in Ashland anywhere, leading me to believe that the people who actually live here are not human at all, but cyborgs who don’t need to eat or sleep, and spend the nights in waterproof containers, waiting to reactivate in the morning to cut in front of me in line at Wal-Mart.

 Suddenly that Fantasyland job isn’t looking too bad.

 I guess I shouldn’t be too worried. I’ve always had trouble finding work, but I’ve always pulled through, mainly because my mom works at the insurance company where I’ve been employed for the past three years. The only other jobs I’ve ever secured on my own were at the Aurora Public Library, where my job degenerated over time into going to get McDonald’s for Sheila, the branch manager, and reading old Garfield books on the floor of the children’s section, and a position at Fantastic Video, a now-defunct organization that was most certainly in league with Satan.

 I won’t drone on about the details, but I’ll tell you this much: I made less than minimum wage, and there was a big package of Depends undergarment protectors in the bathroom.

 Needless to say, I did a shoddy job putting those videos in alphabetical order! Showed them!

 Who would have thought I’d have such problems finding work here in Ashland? I’m skilled in Microsoft Office, copy machine maintenance, and the deadly arts. I have a myriad of skills, including a working knowledge of the complete films of Chevy Chase ("Funny Farm" was definitely a turning point in his career), a mastery of the Dewey Decimal System, and the ability to burp on command. That, coupled with my creative writing degree, should get me in anywhere, shouldn’t it?

 (Pause for incredulous laughter.)

 I guess the moral of this story is, never graduate from college. The rest of you still have a chance—start failing! Start failing before it’s too late! Turn in your assignments in crayon, refer to your professor as "Rashmina, Lord of the Dark Carnival" on your evaluations, use your own urine as ink on essay tests! Do what you have to, but for the love of God, do not graduate.

 And when you’re repeating your senior year for the fifth time, think of me. I’ll be just down the road, doing lap dances at Fantasyland.