Your First Days Home As An Unemployed College Grad

Congrats, graduate! You did it! You somehow suckered your school into giving you a degree. How was the ceremony? Miserable, right? I know. I know.

Well, now you’re home. And you’re currently unemployed, because this is an article that assumes every 22-year-old in the country is currently unemployed. What can you look forward to during this special time of “freedom”? Lots of things actually. I’ve peered into your future, and come back with the definitive look at how your first few days will go:

Day One.

9 p.m. Return home. Tell your parents you’re late because you were “packing the car all day.” Conveniently ignore what “packing the car” entailed: Waking up hungover at noon.; hurriedly setting up a Craigslist post to sell your furniture; receiving no takers for your furniture; dumping your furniture in a neighbor’s yard; and throwing the rest of your shit in Piggly Wiggly bags.

9:30 p.m. Mentally compare the “Welcome Back” conversation you just had to the one in The Graduate. Remember that you’ve never actually seen The Graduate.

10 p.m. Unpack your Piggly Wiggly bags. Tell parents you made “a shit-ton” of money off your Ikea bed. Ignore their looks of disapproval at your choice of words. You’re an adult now.

11 p.m. Say your good nights. Loudly tell everyone that you’ve got a full summer of self-improvement ahead. You’re gonna get a job. You’re gonna get in shape. You’re gonna learn… Spanish, or something.

11:01 p.m. Do you still have weed in that shoebox?

11:05 p.m. Oh god, it’s awful now. It’s brown. It’s not supposed to be brown. There’s still a roach in it, too.

11:06 p.m. It’s the bad kind of roach.

11:10 p.m. Just need to find something to smoke out of…

11:11 p.m. Briefly light toilet paper roll on fire.

12:05 a.m. Tell your dog that while Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back has its moments, Mallrats is Kevin Smith’s only unassailable work.

2 a.m. HBO West SHOWS MALLRATS RIGHT AFTER HBO DOES.

4 a.m. Make mental reminder to call high school drug dealer. Set alarm for 10 a.m. Spanish learning, job getting, and all that.

Day Two.

10 a.m. Nope.

10:30 a.m. Haha.

11:30 a.m. Is that a lingering whiff of bacon you smell?

11:35 a.m. It’s been out for three hours. Don’t curr. Open laptop to write out list of summer goals.

1. Get job.
2. Get in shape.
3. Learn Spanish… or something.
4.

11:40 a.m. Decide to put off goal-writing. Spend an hour attempting to hook Xbox up to family TV.

12:00 p.m. Mild electric shock. You remember that this big-screen is from 1996. You insert FIFA. You realize that not going to be able to see Messi’s name on the back of his jersey—but by now, you recognize every FIFA player by his running style anyway.

12:01 p.m. Text Mike. Mike will probably play online with you.

2 p.m. GO WATCH YOUR SOAP OPERA SOMEWHERE ELSE, MOM.

5 p.m. Shit. Five hours of FIFA. This was not how “Self-Improvement Week” was supposed to start. Decide to get in shape, today, right now.

5:01 p.m. Torrent P90x.

5:30 p.m. Start with “Back and Chest Day.”

5:31 p.m. No chin-up bar, no P90x today, amigo. Decide it can all wait till Monday.

6 p.m. Text friends from home. Briefly explain how you’re back and just “working things out” for a bit. Ask what they’re doing. Find out that your high school girlfriend—long blocked on Facebook—is now engaged, most of your acquaintances are about to “move to the city,” and your drug dealer is in prison.

7 p.m. Meet two friends at the pizza place for food and pitchers. Tell them you’re “working on a screenplay,” while looking for some more stable line of work “to hold over.” Your dick friend wants to know the full plot of the screenplay.

7:01 p.m. Improvise, improvise, improvise.

7:01 p.m. “There’s this kid, and he’s really good at basketball, and he gets a scholarship to attend a prestigious private high school, right? And he befriends a famous writer, who’s a recluse. And they both learn a lot from each other. And…”

7:02 p.m. Oh fuck, this is the plot of Finding Forrester.

7:03 p.m. “Sounds a lot like Finding Forrester.”

7:05 p.m. Decide to get drunk.

10 p.m. You’re at the one bar in town. Your 10th grade U.S. History teacher just walked by. A girl two grades below you is serving you Jack and Cokes. You’ve already exhausted every lie you have about college and now your dick friend is calling you “Sean Connery” because of the pizza place incident. You eye the younger bartender, she eyes you, and you dramatically text Mom, “Gonna be back late. Don’t wait up.”

2 a.m. Return home, alone. Accidentally trip alarm, handle phone call with night cop/Little League coach deftly. Open refrigerator to clean, abundant food. Eat 15 Bagel Bites and all the bananas.

Day Three.

12 p.m. Arise.

12:01 p.m. Sigh.

12:02 p.m. Get on Linkedin.

Post-Sad runs every Tuesday. Follow me on Twitter.