Well, here we are yet again. After midterms, before Thanksgiving break. And if you think you’re burnt out now, just wait until finals. “Finals” being the Five Insidious, Nasty, Arduous, Loser aSsignments that you forget or just decide not to do, and subsequently cause you to fear you’re going to fail college and be a disappointment to your parents. And you will be, don’t get me wrong, but that’s still months down the line. You’re still so full of potential and kinetic energy! And they still have no idea that ChatGPT is going to explode and melt all of the toilet paper, bringing us into the Third Dark Age, rendering all of us unhirable and unlovable. But I’m getting ahead of things — that’s not until 2028. At least we have air fryers. And Amazon Prime. 

So you thought you could take 18 credits, yet again. Who do you think you are, Amelia Earhart? Well, you’re not. No one is. And now here you stand, teetering on the edge of a cliff. It’s too deep to see, but something is telling you that all you’ll find at the bottom is either utter madness, complete failure or one of those peg games they have at Cracker Barrel. And while you love pegging as much as the next person, it’d probably be wiser to take the coward’s way out. Step away from the cliff, and go back to what you were doing before: skipping the mandatory recitation — it was at 10 a.m. anyway, how’d you expect yourself to wake up that early for a silly little class — and not showing up to the lecture despite the traitorous Top Hat quizzes revealing your absence to the poor professor just trying to make a dying wage and share their passion with you. How much are you paying to sleep through the promise you made when you were a child? And that’s in-state? Yikers. 

Okay. Coward’s way out it is. Now, should you withdraw from the gen ed your friend promised would be an easy A but is, in fact, a hard F in more ways than one? Or should you withdraw from the class that’s mandatory for your major, but the professor’s incredibly annoying, and they posted the classes for next semester and your favorite teacher’s teaching that very class. So then you could take it with her instead and not the guy that thinks he’s teaching poetry to at-risk teens when he’s in fact reading Shakespeare to a bunch of privileged 20-somethings with abandonment issues who are honestly way more into Shakespeare than anyone should be in 2023. Sure, some of his stuff is bars as hell, but the histories were unbearable, even when it’s David Tennant doing Richard II. And some would say that Eminem is a modern day Shakespeare. I wouldn’t, but, you know, to each their own. 

But if you quit the putrid poetry class — ew, that’s what happens when you learn alliteration — you won’t be able to take the last core class for your major next semester and get it over with like you wanted to! No dice. Fine, what about the gen ed? But if you withdraw from it now, you’ll have to take an entire extra class later! And what if that one’s even worse than this one? What if you have to actually open the textbook you paid $200 for two months ago, promising yourself that you’d actually do the reading this time? You almost believed yourself this year, didn’t you? And what if you get the infamous senioritis that you’ve honestly had since junior year of highschool, and fail the class, and have to stay longer and become one of them? Them being the loathsome fifth-years. Alas. She sunk my cost till I fallacy. 

You could drop both, but then what would you do with all that free time? Have friends? Hang out with them? Ugh, disgusting. Imagine it. Building meaningful relationships to last you the rest of your life? Becoming a better, more self-actualized person through gainful companionship? Pshaw, who needs that when you could be boosting your GPA so that you can… say you had a high GPA in college. Wow. Huh. She pyramid my scheme till I college is a. 

I mean, when you put it that way, it sounds like you should, maybe, not withdraw from a class this semester. You should just buckle down and get your work done, like your dad always told you while chugging a milk gallon in front of the still-open fridge. Ah, fatherhood. One of nature’s most beautiful mysteries, like how you spell “Chique Fillet.” I suppose you could, you know, actually do the assignments. And go to the mandatory recitation that’s really only 50 minutes of your week. After all, who needs eight hours of sleep every night? Not you, right? 

Welp, that’s about it. Did you withdraw? Do I look like I care? Because I don’t, if that wasn’t clear. I’m too busy peering into that chasm I was talking about earlier, trying to figure out whether I should give up or take that leap of faith. Sure, I could crash and burn and lower my GPA a few points, but what if? What if the peg game from Cracker Barrel’s down there, just patiently waiting for the both of us? I guess we’ll just have to take the plunge and find out. See you in hell! 

Alaina McCall writes things. They would rather be a lighthouse keeper than do whatever they’re doing now. You can reach them at [email protected]