I will continue to refer to myself as a recent grad, gripping the remains of college like a seventy-six-year-old woman’s wonder bra- ever combating the weights of change, until the day I am no longer carded.

Use your free student gym membership. This is not me calling you fat. This is me saying you will get fat. You hear all about the Freshman 15 but no one tells you about the post-grad-job-hunt-grad-school-app-twenty-five. The whole taking down Facebook body shot pictures in your twenties has nothing to do with potential employment and everything to do with buying a larger pair of spanx.

Get your parents to buy you as many back to school clothes and shoes as possible. Think your parents won’t fall for that? Play on their emotions, pull the whole, “this is the last time I am going back to school, remember my first day of kindergarten when I wore a navy blue and pink striped dress… J. Crew has one just like it!”  You never realize how inappropriate your wardrobe is until you have to dress business casual every day for a week. Those little black spandex skirts do not count as pencil skirts. Even if you’re wearing black tights under it. Don’t argue with me, you’re still a whore.

Stop complaining about walking places to get food. Holy cow I would love to be able to walk across the street to get a slice. Now I have to cross a freeway, a bum with a questionably full Vitamin Water bottle, and two crosswalks no one stops for. (including myself) I have to fill up my tank twice a week and I have yet to encounter one normal person at a gas station. I could write an entire post about types at the gas station. But it would solely consist of me avoiding eye contact because they are all serial killers, yeah I see you soccer mom. Van of bodies is what that is. Shit.
 
You can’t drink like you used to once you graduate. It’s like waking up on your thirteenth birthday. Yesterday at twelve you could wake up at seven AM and watch MTV music videos in the living room while your parent’s slept in, and wonder what was ever wrong with a little bump and grind in the first place? Instead you wake up like a freaking vampire, something about sunlight before noon burns your eyes so much you realize you need glasses- and not in the cute trendy way you once wanted. My point is, that stupid gene that makes you hate waking up early is the same one that gets you drunk off two glasses of wine, which is really cool at first, until it’s the worst hangover of your life. And you’re driving to work like, how did that happen and why is there a five dollar bill in my bra?

It is physically impossible for me to do shots anymore. Hearing the word “shot” alone makes me throw up my chicken Caesar salad a little. Because that’s all I know how to make. Fucking salads.

 It is also physically impossible for me to stay alert past midnight. I go to bed at eleven. The time I used to start my homework at. I actually wash my face, and brush my teeth, and almost flipped a table like a Real Housewife when I realized I was out of astringent. On the rare occasion I do attend a bar gathering I forget everything at the stroke of midnight. Like an elderly Cinderella. It’s not that I blackout, I just turn into a sleepwalker.

 So here’s the advice part of the post. Don’t graduate. But if you have to then do it from the University of Michigan. Nothing says “I’m ready for the real world” quite like cutting someone off as you merge onto the highway (even though *apparently* they have the right of way) like a “Michigan Alumni” license plate case.