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Soon, a credit card offer arrives in the mail. Then another one. Before we know it, we have four cards and three lines of credit. Thousands of dollars we haven’t worked for yet are at our disposal. We go out to eat whenever we want, we go to the mall and buy ourselves new clothes, and Scott calls me from work regularly, telling me about a great price on a new TV, a stereo, a dehydrator, video games. We don’t have money in the bank for stuff like this, so we put it all on the cards.
My favorites are the catalogues. They’re little magazine-type mail-order catalogues filled with beautiful house decor, clothing and gifts. Once I buy something from one of them, I start getting a new one in the mail every few days, from different companies that must have purchased my information. I’d complain, except that I like getting them. Plus, a couple of them say I’m pre-approved for credit, so I can charge what I want. I go through and pick out the coolest framed picture that’ll look great in the entryway, the most beautiful area rug that’ll really spruce up our bedroom, and the perfect window covering for the spare room. It’s a fun way to relax and unwind, to sit on the couch drinking coffee and look through the catalogues, picking out the perfect things.
Our apartment is filling up with cool stuff. All our old things seem shabby in comparison, so we replace the mix-matched dishes and buy sets of spices and expensive frames to display our pictures. For the first time ever, I have brand new fluffy pillows and a down comforter. Our glasses are from a full set, and our linen closet holds a stack of plush bath towels. Little by little our old stuff is boxed, bagged, and stored up in the attic in case we need it someday.
By the time I start school at the end of August, our place is nice and comfy. Our spare room is all set up with our new computer, tall bookshelves for my textbooks, and a cushy chair so I can sit and do homework for hours on end. We’re all set.
Year Three
School
School is easier than I thought it’d be. I arrive early to all my classes, find a seat near the front, and listen carefully to the professors’ welcome statements. My heart races when I have to introduce myself, but I get through it and sound just fine. A guy near the back flushes and stammers when he introduces himself, and it makes me feel better to see that others are nervous too.
“If you come to class,” one of my professors says, “and do your assignments, you’ll do just fine.”
That turns out to be true. Even subjects I hated in high school are easy when I follow that advice. Each class builds off the last one, so if I attend and listen and understand the material, the assignments are just extra practice and the next class is manageable. It’s those who miss classes that have trouble. Heather sits next to me in math, and the first time she misses a class I help her out during group time. The next week she misses two out of three classes, and even though I help her review what she missed, she doesn’t have enough time to absorb it, and she’s overwhelmed by the new concepts. By October, she stops coming to class altogether. Others follow suit. Around the drop deadline, when students can withdraw from classes without getting a W on their transcripts, a third of the class has dropped out. That’s the case in most of my classes. I even notice a difference walking through the halls. There’s far fewer people than when the semester started.
Scott says it was the same for him when he was in school. “Some people just have a hard time dedicating themselves,” he says.
“They’ll probably come back after they try making it out in the real world without a degree.”
Scott shrugs. “Even with a degree, you don’t necessarily get a good job anymore. Look at me.”
He’s right. A college degree is like the new high school diploma. It’s not a guarantee of a job at all, never mind a good, rewarding job. I’ll need to get a master’s degree if I really want to make something of myself. A master’s degree is still prestigious.
I can see myself as a graduate student, actually, all serious and absorbed in study. Already I find myself reading passages from my homework out loud to Scott and relaying things I’ve read to my co-workers. I had no idea that America had been so active in the African slave trade, for instance, and I describe scenes from The African to my co-workers as we tray up our food in the kitchen. “These people were stolen and loaded into ships!”
“I know, it’s awful,” one of the other servers agrees before heading back into the dining room to bring drinks to her table.
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