Commencement Season

It is Commencement Speech season so…

...Graduates, parents, grandparents, faculty, administrators, siblings, future students, and pets I welcome you to the 2015 Commencement for Our Sister of The Worthless Miracle College!

Please turn your iphones to blare and feel free to tweet, facetime, snapchat, Facebook, and even Myspace…anything to draw the attention away from me. Because if the honoraria is any indication of my worth, then you might as well YouTube some skateboard fails right now. And by the way, how am I not getting an honorary degree today. Did you run out of tassels or something? Just give me a PhD and a parking sticker and we’re all good here.

Before I go any further, like on to a real school, I want everyone to stand and give a hand to the graduates today.

[applause]

Thank you, thank you, they’ve earned it don’t you think? I mean who else could have not been employed for 4 years. Ok, that’s enough, we don’t want them to get bigger heads. It already looks like a Southpark episode down there.

[motions to graduates]

As an alum I am so proud to be back here today; It brings joy to my heart to come back to the place where I learned so much about life: about how to throw up so the RA’s won’t hear me, or replacing bong water without the RA’s seeing me, and something from Psych 101.

I know you graduates will come to appreciate this place too. Your time here will be the best years of your life, mainly because your parents were paying for it. But you will look back upon these four to seven years with great fondness and little money, and maybe even an STD.

But commencement means to begin. We are here today because you are creating a new beginning; A new life with new challenges, like paying your car insurance, and not passing out when you see your first student loan bill, or going on a date that costs more than a twelve pack.

But you can do it. You have been given tools through these four years here. You learned to pick the RA’s lock, steal cutlery from the cafeteria, drink your weight on Saturday afternoons then throw it up on Saturday nights. You’ve got talent! But be forewarned, there will be doubters, naysayers who remember the time you did the walk of shame in different colored socks, or the time you made out with the statue on college green, and how about the time you tried to do a keg stand and fractured your tongue. But just let the haters hate graduates. You’ve got work to do.

Well, as soon as you find a j-o-b, you’ve got work to do. Which will be another challenge. It’s tough out there even though your resume is stacked with obfuscation, duplicity, and other big words. And even though you interned at Gigawhat?! Media last summer learning how to roll joints, fart on cue, and edit cat videos, you could still have a tough time finding g a job. But you will persevere graduates. Did you give up when you failed that BIO exam? No, you bribed the TA with pot brownines and a handy. That my friends is called moxy. Did you give up when Judiciaries put you on probation for imitating a campus police officer at the sorority house? Hell no, you forged a letter from the Sorority president and got back to work on the force. That’s taking the initiative friends! You’ve got what it takes to get a job.

Now you could skip all that and go to grad school but seriously, how many more brain cells can you kill? Graduate school partying makes undergrad look like pin the tail on the donkey. Only in grad school the donkey is real and you literally have to pin a diaper pin to the donkeys testes, while on ecstasy. But maybe you will go to grad school to get more skizzills. It may be good for you to delay something beyond a text that isn’t returned in 2 nanoseconds. You kids and your damn phones…hold on a sec

[gets call on cell]

“Ha ha, yeah right, no hey I’m actually giving a speech here, can I, no not the rotary club, but can I call you back, oh but hey send me those pics, the naked ones. Kay, bye”

[ends call]

Where was I? Keg stands? No, no delaying gratification. You can do that too. When you came here 4 years ago you were a snot nosed punk with dreams of grandeur and a bad haircut. Look at you now, you’ve got a nose ring and a stupid looking hat on and last night you dreamed you came, laude. You can do it graduates. 

And you’ve got support! Parents will you support them?

[raises hands – applause]

Trust me, they’ll support you. “But you’ll have to move to the basement on account of Nanna moving in. And you’ll have to help with the chores and chip in for food and bills and mow the lawn and walk the dog and not eat any of dad’s pickles, you know he loves those pickles. Oh and can you stop and get some bunion cream from target on the way home.”

What I’m saying is, buck up, get out there, take some chances, take some risks, live a little; you don’t need support, you need backbone. And you’ve got it. Because I saw you steal it from the gross lab.

So take that stolen backbone and get out there and make your mark on the world. Don’t settle, unless they just have too much evidence against you, don’t take no for an answer, unless there’s a restraining order, don’t give in to fear, give in to your lack of talent though, otherwise you are just wasting your valuable time.

And time is so precious. I mean think back about the last 4 years and how fast it has gone by. Seems like only yesterday you got buzzed on two beers and knew absolutely nothing about sociology or physics. The time has flown by and you can now drink a 12 pack before the game and wax poetic about the Kardashians. Don’t let it slip away graduates. You’ve got to grab life by the balls, and I know you can, because I saw you do it in the gross lab. 

I’d like to end with a little story. It was my junior year and I had a crush on Jamie Lee who lived across the quad. I’d heard that she had broken up with her boyfriend so I asked her out. She laughed in my face and mocked my acne. But you know what, I got some clearasil, worked out all year and then saw her at a party senior year. I said “remember when I asked you out and you laughed in my face?” She said “I do and this is my boyfriend Hans from the hockey team who will now commence to beating the shit out of you.” And Hans did beat the shit out of me. But you know what, I met my future wife, a nursing major at the time, in the emergency room when they put my nose back on, so it all worked out.

And it will all work out for you graduates. As soon as you put your damn phone down…

[dials out]

“Hey I just got those pics. Send me the other ones, with the mules and the twins.”

[thunderous applause]