>>> Points in Case
By staff writer Court Sullivan
Issue #16 – September 2002

-I had another internship this summer and boy what a thrill! Nothing beats waiting for a career breakthrough by talking on instant messenger all day. There I am, typing away comparing my job with one of my friends’ jobs. First we do some lying about “trying to get some work done,” then there’s this long, electronic silence while we sit there trying as hard as possible to relay any bit of importance we felt so far during the day. Then we quickly move on to more important things like refining techniques for legitimately lengthening our lunchbreaks and planning excuses in the event we’re caught taking long lunchbreaks. One time I didn’t get to work until 10AM and my friend was like, “Hey, you signed on so late I thought you weren’t coming in today!” He might as well be my fucking coworker!

-At work, they actually send emails alerting people when the Internet goes down. For God’s sake, I’m an intern! I knew the Internet was down way before you did! The word intern itself is a derivative of Internet! Why don’t I get paid to write these emails?!

-There are always two descriptions about a summer internship: the one where you brag about how little you did or the one where you try to sound all professional about it like you actually learned a lot of shit and it somehow had a valuable impact on the rest of your life. And surprisingly, even though we all know it’s the first one, the same kid will tell two different stories to the same friend at some point.

-One time, I sent an email suggesting that all the interns come to my house to “get extremely happy” instead of going to a bar since some of us weren’t 21. One of the interns emailed everyone back warning us about “alluding to illegal activities in work emails.” Are you kidding me?! I have yet to see the email police come around in a little trolley and scoot someone away from their cubicle to a corporate holding tank where hundreds of other delinquent emailants await stringent electronic punishment for underage contemporary allusions. What’s next? Misdemeanor “reply to alls,” recreational conversation abuse, and fifth degree forwarding?! I mean, if they only knew the things I say on IM!

-Most college students are familiar with the “walk of shame” back to your dorm the morning after hooking up with someone. Guys take it after hooking up with an ugly chick, and girls take it either way (sorry ladies). But I never knew the working world had its own walk of shame that you take into the office when you show up conspicuously late. The “working world walk of shame” is even worse because it’s guaranteed you’ll have to pass plenty of co-workers and maybe even your boss, all of whom give you the evil eye for being lazy and smelly. And just like in college, you probably ARE completely exhausted and smelly, except this time because you went to bed too late and skipped the morning shower, not because you got smashed and hooked up with an ugly chick.

-I love the first two weeks back at school. It’s a period called drop/add—an online class-switching system which allows you to give a legitimate excuse to every one of your professors for missing the first two weeks of class. I barely even know how to USE the drop/add system, but I’m an expert at explaining how it gives me the ability to switch all four of my classes at the last possible second! One time I got called out by a professor for being on the class roster from the beginning of school, but I just blamed it on the university computer system—which works every time because professors hate computers.

-So for the first few weeks, people just get drunk all the time. As an upperclassman especially, you realize the first few classes are worthless anyway and drinking every night becomes the norm. Sometimes I drink so consistently that being sober becomes abnormal. It’s like, “Dude, I’m gonna get SO fucking sober tonight! You’re not even gonna know me!!”

-Senior year is nice because you and your friends are usually 21 by the beginning of the year. The thing about turning 21 though is that it’s more about eliminating hassles than gaining freedom. I mean, I’ve already been going to bars, getting into clubs, and buying alcohol illegally for years. It’s about time I earned a free pass.

-Have you ever been to a club and noticed how it looks like everyone walks around with a purpose? Where the hell are these people always going?! It’s like it’s not “cool enough” to wander around aimlessly—you have to have a final destination in mind and a focused look on your face. Okay, the bathroom isn’t THAT exciting! If I ever build a club, it’s gonna be like a bumper car track: just one big, open oval with no hidden places so nobody can have a purpose and you have to hit on everyone at some point!

-Speaking of clubs, one of my friends asked a group of random kids from our school if they could drive him home from a club last Thursday night. Apparently he passed out in the car before he could tell them what dorm he lived in, so they just dropped him off on the sidewalk in front of the administration building! Luckily, he woke up at 5AM to a litter of stray cats climbing on him and meowing in his ear. Then again, waking up dirty, incoherent, and reeking of alcohol with stray cats meowing in your ear doesn’t exactly distance you from the homeless.

-Guys, have you ever been out drinking with a girl you’re trying to hookup with and had to do the awkward introduction to one of her other guy friends? She’s obviously known this guy longer and maybe even hooked up with HIM at some point, so it’s like an immediate rivalry between you and this other guy, who immediately becomes the asshole. I think the girl should just do the introduction like Ed McMahon on Star Search: “Asshole Friend #1 might have been scoring with me for an incredible three weeks in a row now! Tonight, Court will challenge his ambiguous title and boy does he have the testosterone for it! Let’s see if he can end Asshole Friend #1’s run!”

-Speaking of ambiguous relationships, there’s nothing more exciting than the “closet hookups” in your dorm freshman year. It’s my senior year and I’m STILL finding out about some of the most unlikely couples that hooked up on my freshman hall! Especially now that it’s been so long, girls feel like they can admit to them too without it really contributing to their “slut factor.” I’m like, “What?? You hooked up with HIM too? Where? When?! No wait, just stop there.”

-Hitting on girls at other colleges is always more fun. You get to say things you wouldn’t normally say because who cares! You’ll never see THEM again! Sometimes when I try to make conversation with random girls at other schools though, I’ll accidentally make a comment intended for a second-grade chimpanzee. After a brief, failed recovery comment intended for a chimpanzee held back in first grade, the girl will usually give me one of those awkward “you’re-one-of-those-dumb-guys-aren’t-you” pauses. At which point I try to use my school’s reputation to my advantage with “So, where do go to school again? I go to Emory University.” And she replies, “Oh, Emory…that’s such a cool name for a school!” Then I proceed to the zoo to hit on first-grade chimpanzees.

-That brings me to this month’s Failed Hookup Quote of the Month, brought to you by Andy P. of John Hopkins though, not me. After walking a girl home to her dorm room and making conversation with her roommate who was about to go to bed, he turned to his potential hookup and whispered, “Your roommate thinks we’re going to hookup doesn’t she?” The girl said probably and he replied, “Well, then we should…to make her happy…right?” Nothing like implying that your only motivation to hookup with someone is to satisfy her roommate!

-I think that to help counteract these regrettable situations, the suitcase manufacturers should look into “drunken reminder tags” for people who get wasted on a regular basis. Something around the wrist with important, gender-specific, drunken reminders like, “You probably shouldn’t be telling her this/Don’t worry, he’s just drunk,” “Your tab is still open at the bar/His tab is still open at the bar!” and “Not her, trust me, you’ll be sorry!/Repeat after me, ‘Walk of Shame!’” And of course, a personalized home address label: “If found, please return to Emory University. Anywhere the stray cats won’t find me!”

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