T. Kid's College Graduation

Just before my senior year of college, it occurred to me that I might actually lose out pretty big in life if I didn’t graduate. I had spent much of the previous three years smoking blunts, taking hallucinogens, and wandering around Philadelphia with my homeboys, paying little attention to my declining grades. Arguably, I learned a lot more on those impromptu field trips than I did in my plug-and-play marketing curriculum, but no one was handing me college credits for self-discovery. I decided that I’d spend my last year trying my best, and it turned out that college work was a lot less difficult than I had imagined. Nevertheless, my three years of fuckery were not remedied by a single year of dedication, and I had to spend an extra semester finishing up. I saw it as an opportunity to dilute my bad grades with good ones just a little more. All I had to do was ace my capstone business course, which was mostly a matter of getting into the professor’s good graces.

Prof. Mole was a notoriously crotchety old man with a cruel sense of humor that he strongly preferred to anyone else’s. He knew that his course was the final obstacle between his students and the finish line, so the sadistic prick made it incredibly stressful. Knowing this, I walked into the first class session with my goof factor fully suppressed, and my game face on. But the moment Mole walked in and started writing on the board, an old custom shattered my discipline.

Speaking in whispers behind me, two students were discussing the syllabus. One asked the other, “We’re only tested once?” The other replied, “Twice.”

Now, long before this my friends and I had established a rule that, if you heard the words “once” and “twice” in succession, you had to sing, “Three times a ladayyy,” in reference to the classic Commodores song. In the present instance, I fully complied with the rule. Mole stopped writing and, turned around from the board. Along with everyone else in the class, he took a long hard look at me. I said nothing and put on the gravest expression I could muster, knowing that I was irrevocably on his shit list. On top of that, my classmates thought I was out of my mind. When he broke us up into groups for our senior project, the three kids he placed me with looked horrified. One of them said in a low voice, “Ugh, not that stoned kid.”

Their judgment turned out to be unwarranted, because these were three of the dumbest college students I had ever encountered. Despite their deceptively dorky appearances, they achieved no understanding of the subject matter and invoked Mole’s rage frequently. Whenever this occurred, I would slink away from the group just enough that it looked like I wasn’t with them. I’d just look at them sympathetically along with the other students. Before long, Mole forgot I was even in the group. At one point, I even raised my hand to correct them on a group assignment that I had worked on, earning a back pat from Mole. I was not proud of the betrayal, but it got me back on his good side. I coasted along in this guise until the end of the semester, when we had to present our final project as a group. When Mole realized that I was a member of this D-class outfit, he gave me a death stare and said nothing else. I sputtered out my portion of the presentation and got out of the line of fire, sure that I was now completely fucked. I was going to fail my capstone and spend another semester in college.

When our grades for the semester were posted, I was sure they would be bad news so I didn’t check them. Then I got an email telling me I needed to pick up my cap and gown for graduation. Considering this is how I found out that I had actually finished college, I probably didn’t deserve to graduate. But by some stroke of dumb luck, I had managed to pass Mole’s course, and was clear to exit my extended college career. I rejoiced by throwing out all my notes and going on a weed and booze bender of magnificent proportions. My homies, most of whom had graduated on time the previous year and were still unemployed, joined this debauchery enthusiastically. It extended all the way through Christmas, New Year’s, all of January, up to the night before my graduation ceremony.

Spring graduation that year happened to fall on Super Bowl Sunday, but my focus was neither on the game, nor on my completion of college. What dominated that weekend was a Philadelphia tradition that seems to get uglier and more enjoyable every year: the Wing Bowl.

An upcoming VICE doc will show you the inner workings of this gluttonous shitfest. (I can’t give you any details because I’ve never made it into the building.) As is the custom, we arrived the night before the competition to tailgate outside what was then known as the Wachovia Center in South Philly. I was dressed in my cap and gown over my beanie and bubble jacket. My good friend Marv (who has since calmed his lifestyle) popped the trunk of his car and pulled out my graduation present; a case of Victory Golden Monkey, a 10% ABV Belgian-style tripel. Surrounded by raging white sports fans and their dads, Marv, our friend Sambones, and I proceeded to smash beer after beer. All the while we smoked massive Ls while rolling more massive Ls. By this point in the month-long bender, this kind of consumption had become routine, and we administered it in a clockwork fashion.

I have no memory of the evening after the fourth Golden Monkey, but I distinctly remember waking up the next morning in Sambones’ living room. I could taste the residue of intensely rich beer in my throat and could feel my head pounding with its sugars. Standing up, I realized that I was still wearing my cap and gown over my bubble jacket and beanie. The black fabric of the gown was strewn with streaks of deep yellow, which turned out to be mustard. Evidently we had stopped at the Pretzel Factory at some point in the wee hours of the morning. It was now 9:30 AM and, oh shit, I had to go graduate from college. I stumbled over to a fetal-positioned Marv and tried to shove him into consciousness so he could drive me up to campus, where my mom and uncle were waiting to see me walk. Without opening his eyes, he reached into his pocket, fished out his car keys, and handed them to me.

I drove up to my graduation puffing a blunt roach in Marv’s Camry. (This was the same car in which we had been in a police chase a year or two earlier.) I burst through the front door of the Liacourous Center into a crowd of parents who were likely thanking whatever god they believe in that I wasn’t their kid. I was spotted by an organizer who hurried me down to the sub-room where all my classmates were seated in alphabetical order, ready to walk out and make their families proud.

The moment I stumbled in, the square part of my cap fell off. I plowed toward my seat, unsettling every graduate in my way, trying desperately to keep that cardboard square on top of my head. The girl seated next to me took pity on me. She found a giant safety pin in her handbag and helped me spear it through both the elastic and the square portion of my cap so the sharp end was sticking straight up out of the middle of it. Fitting it onto my head and slowly pulling my hands away, I asked her, “How do I look?” She said, “Like Kaiser Wilhelm,” and started giggling.

Her laugh was infectious, and I started giggling as well. At some point she stopped, but I just kept going. Walking out onto the parquet court, I scanned the audience for my mom and uncle. I stopped when I saw their two familiar, shocked faces. My mom’s dropped jaw began to curl into a laugh and she put her face in her hands. My uncle was laughing so hard he was bouncing up and down.

When my name was called, I proudly ascended onto the stage. All the high-ranking professors were there dressed like futuristic monks, with different colored stripes on their sagging sleeves. At the head of this group, standing next to a manservant with a pile of diplomas, was Prof. Mole. From ten paces away, he looked disgusted, but as I got closer his expression seemed to soften. He started to laugh. When I finally got to him, he handed me my diploma, and instead of saying “Congratulations” or “You’ve done very well” he asked, “Why are you so puffy?”

At first I was confused, but then realized what he meant. I replied, “Oh! Got a bubble jacket on.” I didn’t have time to explain the mustard or the pin sticking out of my head. He laughed and shook his head. As I stepped off the stage and walked past the audience, I could hear a murmur of laughter move with me like a wave. My mom and uncle met me by the exit, still laughing. “Congratulations!” my mom said. “I’m so glad we never, ever have to see any of these people again!”

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