About once a week I get a letter from my High School asking for money.
I have about -$95 in my bank account right now. Yes, that’s NEGATIVE 95 dollars. I owe everyone in my life money. Hell, I probably owe you, but you’ll just have to accept this Thought as payment.
Anyways, given my financial situation, I am less than compelled to donate funds to a school I attended during what can only be referred to as the “awkward and definitely not popular” years. Thank goodness I’ve turned things around now, but back then it was touch and go.
Trying to think of a way to humanely blow off my alma mater I came across a little sheet of paper asking me to jot down a few lines about what I’ve been up to lately for the alumni newsletter.
“Here’s my chance,” I thought. “I’ll write something that will get them off my back.”
And so it goes:
I graduated from High School in 1996 with a spring in my step and a gleam in my eye. However, on my way to North Carolina to begin college in the Fall of 1996 I said to myself: “Screw Duke! I’d rather be fishing!”
I then headed off to the Land of 10,000 Lakes: Illinois. Curse High School geography class! By the time I realized that Illinois was the Land of Lincoln, and Minnesota was where all these crazy lakes were, my spring had become a limp, and my gleam was a fork that someone had stabbed in me during an all-too-serious food fight.
Down one eye and grasping for meaning in my life, I headed out to Montana (Land of 10,000 Militias) to, as I said at the time, “Find myself…or at least be able to drive real fast. They don’t have speed limits in Montana, right?”
Boy was I wrong. Seventeen speeding tickets later I had learned my lesson. It was time to settle down, find a wife, buy a farm, and whatever else it was people did to settle down in Montana.
So, I did. Now my wife, my six kids and I get by on substistence production from our farm. I’ll tell you what. It sure is the sweet life.
Scott Hecker, Class of ’96
A few days after sending my missive I received another package from my old school. In it were application materials for my kids.
Seems that if I can’t donate to the annual fund, they’ll accept tuition checks instead…