Majors

How do you make a friend in college? Same as anywhere else. You talk to them, earn their trust, share a deep secret about yourself, learn a deep secret about them, use them for a couple of car rides, threaten them with exposing their deep secret if they don’t let you copy their homework, admit your deep dark secret wasn’t true anyway when they threaten to do the same, and always high-five them when you spot each other on campus. It’s much the same as anywhere else. The hardest part of making friends is starting a conversation. That’s where the key to college friendships lies. The college conversation starter, asking someone about their major.

My college major was Radio/TV. I figured I listen to the radio and I watch TV. It’s destiny. All I remember about radio is the term “boxcar” which is something that nobody has to do anymore due to the fact that computers play all the songs. All I remember about TV class was white balancing and making sure the tripod was straight by having a little bubble be inside of a larger bubble. I was so bad at these classes that I only got A’s when it was mandatory to give an A if you did what you were told. During one filming session I was in charge of the camera. I had no idea how to use it and after an amazing 30 minutes of shooting the director went back to listen to it. No sound. I had plugged the chord into the wrong place. I blamed the cute actress who I’m pretty sure caught me peeing in the woods.

(Somewhere in here Dick Clark is waiting to die. That’s what we in the humor business call a callback joke! Too bad it took a few days)

I never made too many friends in college outside of the majors I had. Most of the kids were pretty weird. There was one girl I tried to make friends with. I made a joke about killing a dog and she laughed. I really wish I remembered what it was because never have I made a girl cackle like that before or again. I think she’s quarterback for the Eagles now. She was going to school for nursing. That’s about as far as we talked. We were in a group and I asked her what her major was. She said nursing. I said mine. Then we kind of sat there staring at each other and I added her on Myspace 5 months after classes ended. At least she accepted. Did she even know who I was? Probably not. She called me Tom at least twice.

 (She was one letter off and look how close the “i” and the “o” are. I forgive you tiny blonde girl)

It makes sense that such a boring topic would be the conversation starter for college kids. In general, people in college are pretty boring. At least us non-college kids can talk about our Target credit card bills and check engine lights. Kids in college don’t have those things in their life. It’s all about whatever their majoring in. That is their life. If you’re going to school for nursing, all you talk about are stethoscopes and diarrhea. Those majoring in philosophy quote dead Romans who believed the sun revolved around a flat earth. You know, guys who really had worldly knowledge despite never leaving their county or province. Students who say they major in anything that involve computers spend most of their time playing World of Warcraft. They don’t consider it a time waster. They say it’s research.

Even while not talking to other students, college kids are asked what their major is by adults. “You go to Shitface University? What’s your major?” could be an example of what someone might say to a college student upon finding out that they are a Rutgers student. Nobody really cares about what your major is. They always give the same reaction. They head pull back, possibly to the side, eyebrows raised, followed by an “Ohhh that sounds interesting” despite it never being. Unless your major involves flapping your asshole in my face and you are a hot college girl, I don’t really care what it is you’re studying.

After retiring from college no longer will people ask you what your major is. Now they ask you what you do. What I do is hope that someone I’m related to wins the lottery and I can just sit around getting fat until the day I die. That’s really what I’m doing. Through all of the work I’m only doing it in hopes that I somehow begin the butterfly effect that causes this rhetorical family member to win a jackpot. If you believe in the butterfly effect, as in a butterfly flapping it’s wings could cause a hurricane somewhere else, you have to believe that you might be responsible for the Japanese tsunamis last year. Really, that happened last March. I was pretty stuffy last March. Blowing my nose all the time. I claim ownership over the death of all of those Japanese people. That is if you believe in the butterfly effect which isn’t even what the film Butterfly Effect is about. Pretty poorly titled considering they mean different things.

(When will we hold butterflies accountable for all of the deaths caused in natural disasters? Go out and kill one today. You’ll save a lot of lives)

Only again will someone ask you about your major when they find out that you went to the same school. Or if they’re a nosey bitch. You might find yourself years out of school with some mustached retard at work claiming he also went to Shitface State, archrival of Shitface University. You’ll find out that you graduated the same year then he’ll ask you what your major was. Like that changes anything. You still didn’t know each other back then. It’s just something he’s saying to get into your pants. I don’t care if you’re both straight guys. If the conversation ever gets that horrendously non-eavesdrop worthy it means someone is trying to do something to someone else’s butt.