Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

I hated going to class so much that five years ago I opted to graduate with an actual degree. This was a great shock to many of my friends and teachers who felt that I would go the Eric Lahti/Darren Knight route and attempt to become a permanent fixture at Eastern New Mexico University. Eric and Darren, for those of you who have never ventured into “The Land of Enchantment” during the mid to late 90s was a legend on campus.

No, wait, legend isn’t a strong enough word.

Eric was nefarious.

I had to look it up to be certain.

This was before Eric settled down, got married and cut his hair. Not necessarily in that order either. I would be sitting in ENMU’s Theater building and a gaggle of girls would walk by commenting on Eric’s hair, general “hotness” or other sundry things that surrounded this enigma of a man.

But this article isn’t about the man, the myth, the medicated Eric Q. Lahti (bonus points if you know what the “Q” stands for).

In what must be one of the most convoluted career paths since Mata Hari, I have started taking classes again as part of my job. Oh, but the fun doesn’t stop there. Since I work for a community college, this means all my classes are on campus, and all the students on campus are generally first-time fresh-persons and sophomores. This means that they were BORN IN THE 80’s.

And we’re not talking about 1981 here either.

We’re talking MID-80’s.

You remember the 80’s. Layered clothing, sequins, leg warmers, ultra-thin ties, and “stylin’” haircuts. The word “bitchin’” was in general use and Madonna was just some upstart. Hell, she was in competition with Cyndi Lauper and Boy George.

So, while sitting in Visual Graphics class last week, waiting for the teacher to figure out that he should let us go for the day because the lab wasn’t set up correctly, I struck up a conversation with a, get this, artist.

In a graphics art class? No WAY!

Yes Keanu, it’s all true.

But the part that interests you went like this:

Artist: Man, I miss high school. It used to be that I couldn’t wait to get out. Now, all I want to do is get back in.
Me: Ummmm, wow. I don’t miss it at all. Of course it was a while back.
Artist: Oh yeah. When’s your five year reunion?
Me (doing some quick math in my head, then giving up): Oh, ummm . . . that was like five years ago.
Artist (now looking at me sidelong): So, you’re coming up on your ten year reunion!?!
Me (years and dates now crowding out memorized lines from The Simpsons): Ummm, yeah. That’s next year.
Artist: Just how OLD are you?

At this point I faked a heart attack and beat a hasty escape via ambulance. It would have been faster, and much more dramatic, but apparently someone made them take my walker. There’s nothing like having paramedics come to your rescue and I slipped them each an extra quarter so they could buy something nice at the malt shop.

Ok, not exactly.

And it’s not that I feel like I’m getting old, because I’m not.

Damnit.

It’s just that the perceptions of “Generation Next” that I am in some way “old” interests me. I wonder if I had the same perception when I was that age? Gasp, I just said “that age” in reference to people younger then me.

AND I WAS NOSTALGIC ABOUT IT.
Perhaps it’s the fact that I have a job that doesn’t involve flipping burgers or work-study. Perhaps they are mocking me now that I have some level of fiscal and social responsibility that doesn’t include my ability to drink a six-pack of beer every Friday.

Not that those are bad things.

I’ve finely tuned my beer-chugging abilities.

It’s on my resume.

But it’s a little on the weird side realizing that all the struggling that this latest series of classmates are going through is something that is no longer a concern in my life. I’ve done the dance and paid the piper (and the piper is down, I repeat, we have a piper down). This class is more for work and for me then any kind of “grade” or “credit hours” for my “major” (of which I am again “undeclared”).

I guess I just miss Eric around to crack-wise about the general ambiguity of life, freshman tomfoolery and the shenanigans of The Bowery Boys.