the drop-out

The square-caps are flying through the air and descending upon a sea of re-used gowns. It is graduation season again and a whole new crop of fresh graduates will proceed into the world with fortitude, determination and a baseless sense of self-merit.

Gag me.

What is really interesting is what happened to the rest of us? The also-rans. The ones who found life super-ceding a piece of paper on the list of priorities. The drop-outs.

I dropped out of law school two years ago and it changed my life—for the better, I think you will come to see. People looked at me differently. They treated me like a failure. But, the truth is, that in a life full of good decisions, dropping out of law school has been the best decision ever (by far!).

My appendix exploded two weeks after I had left clerkship applications behind me to sweep up hamster poop in a conglomerate pet store. POW! I guess it wanted to be a criminal lawyer. But, the joke was on my appendix, as food is free in a hospital and you don’t even have to do the dishes!

Beyond being super fun to live in the “dorm like” atmosphere of a four-(sick)-person hospital room, when you are confined to a bed you also get to pee in front of other people. This is obviously a phenomenal bonding experience and I made life-long friends. Unfortunately, the other three people in my room died during my stay.

Also, an added bonus to your body believing it has actually died is that you don’t care about bathing. This leads to tens of cents in savings on such extravagancies as soap and dental floss. Plus, during my absence, my cat (best friend) was poisoned by my neighbour.

I am not a Debbie Downer though. Eventually I pulled through these traumas and went about the business of actually living in a post-law-school-drop-out-world. What does one do with all of that free time? Become a jazz singer? Drive a Brinks truck? Blow up a bank? The possibilities are endless, so I opted for some career counselling.

Since I am not very bright, I chose to apply to teacher’s college so that I could meet my potential career counsellors before they made it big as professional guidance counsellors.

Well, now, that is a lie. I applied to teachers’ college on a dare in the hospital. The Betty White look-a-like in the bed to my right was talking about her daily bowel-movement (I have found this to be a surprisingly fashionable topic of conversation both in and out of the hospital setting) and I asked her if I could buy her sleeping medication. “Why don’t you occupy your time with a real challenge?” she asked. “If you think you are so above listening to my poop tales, I dare you to get into teachers’ college from that very bed you are pissing in.”

She dared. I did. Then I promptly forgot…until I found myself admitted four months later. Having accomplished nothing with myself I thought I would try it out, but only so I could pursue some of my real interests—stand-up comedy and finding my one true love. Besides, after my extended absence I had been “let go” from my lucrative career providing personal care to rodents so the “options” bank had closed.

Why I thought teachers’ college would be a better foil for stand-up or love than law school had been I don’t know, but I did. However, if you met my roommate in law school you would know why I didn’t receive the Biggest Bitch in the World Award, so that probably swayed my otherwise impeccable judgement when it comes to all things legal.

Teachers’ college isn’t a great time. If you are looking for fun things to do with your time I would recommend a stay in your area hospital over it any day. Besides the environment being more engaging in a general sense, with enough drugs in a geriatric ward you will come to believe you are taking life advice from the real Betty White. I didn’t find this to be true with teachers’ college.

In part because of this, I did go out and start doing stand-up. As Betty White would have said (if she were still with us), “You didn’t survive law school just to dick around.” But don’t feel too bad for Betty. She lost our bet and never had to pay-up on the five dollars she owes me. Well played Betty—well played!

As it turns out, I’m not half bad at stand-up. I’m only half good, but if I had never tried it, I wouldn’t know that. I fell in love too. He is hairier than the man I imagined myself with when I was in law school. In fact, he might be an actual bear judging by his fondness for all things nature and the fact that he hibernates for three months of the year, but that is a lot better than I was doing before. My previous partner (also a law student) started looking into whether or not he could cash-in and get straight As if I died from the appendix incident. Fortunately he couldn’t, but I wasn’t sure, and denying him of that pleasure was probably the thing that got me through the tougher times. It always helps to have a sturdy foundation in times of stress.

So there you have it. Dropping out of law school isn’t what I would define as a good time (I think Wikipedia has my back on this one). It can really kick you in the gut from the inside out actually. You probably won’t make as much money either. However, there is a definite up-side.

You will free up a lot of time. If you are motivated enough you can definitely become a stand-up comedian (if not a unicorn or an astronaut) with that time. Plus, if you fall in love with a bear that lives in the forest, living in your car (or other mobile home) becomes a real advantage.

Also, I don’t have to wear those sweaty, smelly, graduation gowns. If you think they wash those things in between the different ceremonies you are fucking a tramp named Delusional.

UPDATE: My cat came back too! Turns out he is bulimic and puked up all the poison! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so it begins.