So, I say screw the future. Seize the day, today is the first day of the rest of your life, blah blah blah. We all have our favorite cliches that we bust out every so often because we lack the sophistication to express our thoughts and feelings without them. Strip a cliche of its banality and triteness, and you get the kind of nothing that makes you want to say, "Damn it, I should have stuck with the red snapper."
With an uneventful near future to anticipate, some seniors like myself are reflecting on the past nine months and wondering if they in fact got the most out of the final chapter of their college careers. Others are staring at their bank statements and wondering aloud what crazy drunk got a hold of their check card and spent so much money at bars. And still others are rhyming off stupid cliches, like the one about "living life without regrets."
The question is, then, do I have any regrets? Well, that's probably not the question that logically follows, but it seems to follow thematically at least, so, yeah, of course I have regrets. Everybody has them -- anyone who says that he or she doesn't have any regrets is a liar, like that guy named Billiam in Tennessee claiming to be a ninja who in fact just dresses in black and runs around quoting lines from "The Karate Kid," like, "You possess great skills!" Oh, wait. That's from "American Ninja." Well, either way, Billiam is definitely a liar.
I regret not writing about a long list of things, including the thrashing that the overly-hyped U.S. olympic hockey team received, the tragic loss of four Canadian soldiers due to an American pilot's incompetence, the new software being developed that uses video footage to "predict" criminal behavior, the 72-mile stretch of California coast that is now under 24/7 surveillance, the scourge of single-occupancy vehicles, the recent boo-ing of the Canadian national anthem at a recent Pistons-Raptors game, the new bill of rights being introduced in the UK for dogs and cats or the various conspiracy theories floating around that suggest that W. Bush knew about the events of Sept. 11 before they happened.
I regret not having enough balls when it comes to women -- my friends tell me that a woman wants a guy who "goes after what he wants." The conclusion is therefore that a woman is going to want me the same day that she'll want a pot of scalding hot water thrown in her face. I regret not having spent more time with my friends Sergio, Meredith, Emily, Alison, Chock, Keji, Megan, Emily, Mentos, Duane, Jools, Kevin, Sweetwater Jackson, Wang Chung, Rashonda, Skyy, Jet, Mordechai, Moon Unit and Little Dwayne. Incidentally, I regret not having friends named Sweetwater Jackson, Mordechai or Kevin -- that would be cool.
I regret being born with nine toes and a third nipple. I regret attending nine high schools over a period of 18 months, including Chapel Hill, North Buncombe, East Chapel Hill, Northwest Guilford, Terry Sanford, Jordan, Western Guilford, East Burke, TC Roberson and Enloe. I regret being the illegitimately begotten child of Christopher Lambert and the French ambassador to Monaco, who mistakenly thought she was making whoopee with Christopher Walken. And sometimes, I regret being a compulsive liar.
But, I'm going to toss the regrets aside too -- I say screw the future and the past. As the thread of my college life slowly approaches the point at which it is cut so unceremoniously by fate, the reality is all that matters is what we're doing in the "now," which is in fact all the time. *Sigh* -- score another one for cliches.
Jeez, what in blue blazes am I trying to say? I don't know. Vote. Be a good citizen. Pay your taxes. Complain about paying them. Be informed. Question the media. Don't buy Christmas cards. Tell a loved one you care. Do something nice for someone. Question the government. Don't make a ninja angry. Carpool. Recycle. Eat kids' cereal and watch cartoons, if you want. And above all, worship Canadians.
