Relaxation and rest come at the cost of craziness and overeating
Winter break, at a surface level, appears to be the height of luxury for the college experience. It’s long enough to recuperate after finals season roundhouse kicks you right in the gallbladder but not long enough to where you’re expected to get an internship, job or 401k. Spending the holidays at home seems lovely… but at what cost?
I left Davis on Wednesday of finals week, as all of my finals were giant essays about books I would forget the plots of by Saturday. One parent came to pick me up, and thus the shame party began. You can’t let your parents see your room during finals week. That’s like letting someone see your 7th grade yearbook picture on the first date. It’s too much and it’s gross.
My mom walked in to see what can only be described as “tornado chic.” My pillow was on fire and a goat was eating my backpack. I had begun to scratch tallies into the wall to count down the hours until the week was over. I was wearing a potato sack and a head full of dry shampoo mixed with some stress sweat. It was the sexiest I’d ever looked. My mom couldn’t look me in the eyes. Sure, it was because they were closed because I fell asleep mid-introduction, but she was ashamed. I could smell it… or was that still me?
Once I got home, I assumed the madness would cease. Au contraire… au contraire.
You know how you eat the diet of a mouse watching its carb intake when you’re at school because you don’t have that one ingredient called “money”? Well, adults have that ingredient and a Costco membership. Immediately, I averaged like two to 10 bags of popcorn a day and throwing back packs of fruit snacks like they’re candy. (Author’s note: Fully aware that they are, in fact, candy.) I can’t be tamed or satisfied. It’s like a renaissance king just looking to have six wives and no male successors. That was a Henry VIII roast. He was plump. I am now plump. It’s due to the popcorn. I digress.
Additionally, you realize that none of your friends from your life before the War for Adulthood began, AKA high school, are home yet because they’re all on the semester system. You’ve got about one week to just sit on the couch at home, refresh Canvas and look out a window dramatically while shedding a single tear as “The Sound of Silence” plays in the background. Days go by and you see nothing, only to find out that your professors are some of those jokers who go right to Oasis with the final grade submission. Bastards. I wasted days refreshing when my fate had already been decided. I’m a mere fool.
Did I mention that it’s Christmas time? I have a family of four and a budget of $4. Everyone got a bottle of Dasani water. I got glares.
Most likely, the first two days of break are you at home and alone sitting in front of an episode of “Judge Judy” while praying to Gary May for a decent GPA. Solitary confinement? Indeed. A straitjacket? On its way from Amazon Prime.
And, yes, you can buy straitjackets on Amazon.
Written by: Olivia Luchini — ocluchini@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
