So You Wanna Have A College Degree Do Ya?

You come out of the front door of the house trailing drips of coffee and loose scraps of paper leaving the kid’s screams and the wife’s ‘be careful honey’ in your wake. Juggling everything you struggle to open the door of the rust heap that you charitably call ‘the ride’. Once inside you realize that you have left the keys dangling in the keylock. No problem you think as you unwind the window thinking to yourself that well, at least it isn’t a power window so you don’t have to drag your sorry butt out of the car. As the window gives a little jerk and then a thud that announces with a certain finality that, yes its off its track, you realize the futility of congratulating yourself on anything today.

“Today is a Monday, today is a Monday”, squeak the protesting windshield wipers as you move from the center of the street closer to the edge trying to avoid the road spray of passing cars who seem to instinctively know that your driver’s side window won’t roll up. Somehow the fact that it’s almost March seems to make your wet left arm even colder and you idly wonder if it’s possible to get pneumonia through a soggy forearm. Luckily there’s a parking spot down at the far end of the lot, well past the paved section but then if you’re five minutes late, you have to take what is left.

Five minutes late!! How could you possibly be five minutes late? You break into a run for the door, ignoring the searing pain in your ankle as you twist it on the broken edge of the pavement, hoping against hope that you can slip in and make it to your work station undetected. You’re halfway down the hallway before a head thrusts out and you’re trapped in the beady gaze of the shift supervisor. He deigns to say anything, just turns his nose high and sniffs disdainfully, but you can be sure that your tardiness has been duly recorded and your meager pay-stub will reflect the gaffe.

Now totally rattled, feeling a little subdued and a lot out of breath from your little wind sprint across the parking lot, you grab your chipped coffee mug and totter down to the pot. As usual, in the coffee pot, there is a new miracle of physics on display. How, you wonder, is it possible to leave so little coffee in the pot and still not feel that it’s somehow time to put on a new pot? Surely, anyone with half a brain can see that there isn’t enough coffee left to fill even a small thimble sized expresso cup. Just then the half-a-brain that you were visualizing skips by the door stopping briefly to announce in self-justifying tones that if they hadn’t put on a fresh pot because, you see, the old one wasn’t all gone.

Minutes later you’re back at your desk, head in your hands, eyes squeezed shut you’re trying to visualize somewhere warm and tropical to soothe the sudden migraine you feel coming on when your door is assaulted by a rapping resembling a red cockaded woodpecker on steroids. The grim faced door rapper disgorges the entire contents of his message in a machine-gun burst.

Boss wants to see you in his office in fifteen minutes sharp!! Don’t be late!

Now your stomach really starts to churn, making you wish that, yes indeed, you had taken the time to have breakfast this morning and that you weren’t stuck in this dead end job and that yes, you had stayed on in school and gone to college with all of your buddies. After all, it seemed as though they had all done well, none of them working in this sweatshop like yours truly drawing down a salary rivaling that of pimply faced mickdee’s rep, you realize grimly.

Leaving your work station, you notice on the computer monitor loaded with the day’s drivel that passes for news, a tiny little box with one of those annoying ‘click here’ logos. You squint at it, trying to make out the blurry words that would be so much clearer if you hadn’t left your glasses on the bathroom counter at home and wonder if those words are the answer to your problems. ‘Get your college degree online!’ proclaims the info box nestled between late breaking news related to Cher’s surgery abuse and claims about Brad’s fidelity or lack thereof. Could you really do this? You, the guy that every neighbor loves to have on his street, just so they can always feel superior to someone.

But how would it all play out if you did what the your old guidance counselor suggested? What if you did suddenly apply for an online college degree? And even more dizzying, what if you went out and got it? Now your mind is in hyper-drive, imagining that day when you can swagger on down the hall, so unlike the little journey you’re about to embark upon now, and tell that little pinched faced desk dweller exactly what you think of him, his job, and your “promising career of creating plastic molds for fish-ponds.

Hey, hang on. You’re not going to let that career ending thought take over your mind. Not today. Today was shaping up to be one of those days that really made a person stop and take stock. Not that there was a lot of stock to take, in fact very little at all, truth be told. If you had stayed in school and gone on to university or even college then things would be oh so different. Well they would, wouldn’t they? Sure they would, your mind answers back. And it’s not too late, in fact if those claims by these online schools were true, in just a few short years you could really be graduating with one of many online college degrees. It all sounded just a little bit too good to be true, but still you file that away in your mind as you head down the hall, footsteps dragging ever slower, rivaling those of the chained monster in a B movie…….to be continued….