Every spring I wait for the invitation that never comes. I answer phone calls from “unknown numbers” and check my spam folder twice a day but eventually the bitter truth dawns on me: No one is going to invite me to speak at their graduation ceremony.
I’m realistic. I’m not expecting a call from Harvard or Columbia; I’d be happy with the kind of third rate high school that is on every street corner in South Florida. I think that being a keynote graduation speaker at a sub-par high school would be a fitting highlight to my sub-par pseudo-career as a pseudo-journalist.
I’ve even got my speech ready. I’d start off by telling the kids that they would never regard their high school years as the best years of their life, and that while they would never see most of their classmates ever again, they wouldn’t care. I’d predict that within a year or two of graduation day that they would cross to the other side of the mall to avoid greeting a high school classmate.
I’d mention that their school teachers were for the most part pleasant people, and perhaps even well meaning, but essentially forgettable, and I’d assure them that the teachers who they suspected were sociopaths or drunks or lechers were, in fact, sociopaths and drunks and lechers.
I’d tell the kids that any class they thought was a waste of time really was a waste of time, and reveal that I spent years bored and resentful that I had to take algebra, geometry and chemistry which, even at 15, I knew I would never use. My guidance counselor disagreed, but decades later I can absolutely say that my time would have been better spent learning how to manage a small business. It is ironic that my best high school advice came from my mom who insisted I take four years of Spanish. “You live in Florida,” she said. “You need this.” She was right.
I’d tell the kids that high school was really just government subsidized day care, the main purpose of which was to keep them off the streets for 180 days a year. I’d add that the secondary purpose was to prepare them to pass the statewide tests that would help to perpetuate an inefficient system that keeps mediocre educators employed.
Next, I’d remind the kids to show gratitude to their parents in general and their step-parents in particular. “People dream of being doctors and lawyers,” I’d tell them, “but no one wants to be a step-parent.” I’d urge them not to take it personally when their bedroom was converted into a Mancave or a Pilate’s room within moments of their vacating the house. “Your step-parents have waited years for you to leave the house,” I’d tell them. “Don’t rain on their parade.”
And finally I’d encourage them to re-think their future plans. “Maybe going to college is not the best option for you,” I’d say. “Everyone knows that the only reason to go to college is to drink heavily and fuck like rabbits,” I would say, but the price for that freedom is often a worthless degree and crushing debt. “You’re going to spend the best years of your life paying back student loans,” I’d tell them. “Learn a trade.”
I’d share that I spent years in college and grad school, bankrupting myself in the process, only to work in a field that required a weekend certification course. Then I’d mention that my doctor lives in a townhouse in Wilton Manors and my electrician lives on a deepwater lot in Lighthouse Point.
“Do the arithmetic,” I’d say, leaving the stage to thunderous applause..