Expensive drinks, cheap food and carelessly squandering money. I’ve recently come to the realization that these are a few of my favorite things.
A strange thing happened to me the other night. I left to go to the bars with a couple buddies, certainly nothing out of the ordinary for your typical college student on a Saturday night. The weird thing for me though, one of the most memorable moments didn’t actually happen that night. It happened the next morning, when I realized I blew close to 40 bucks in just a mere few hours.
Now, 40 bucks may seem like chump-change for a guy who makes a decent weekly income. Unfortunately, uh, that ain’t me. I fit a tad bit more in the "destitute college student looking to do anything for a few quick bucks" category than anything else.
The peculiar thing is, I didn’t really mind going through that much money in such a quick span. As dumb as it sounds, I’ll probably end up doing it again sooner rather than later. And that’s where the mentality of being a college student takes over.
My justification for burning through currency like a human torch? It’s college; this may very well be the only place something like this is even borderline acceptable. Once you’re through here, the rules on how to enjoy weekends usually changes drastically. No more frat parties, no more blindly wandering around town waiting for a cab to pick you up, and most importantly, no more reckless living without regard for your bank account’s well-being.
The only thing to do is just enjoy whatever you can, while you can. It might hurt later, but as college students, there’s really no other time in our lives when we’ll be able to live for the moment. Hitting up the MAC machine twice in a night certainly put quite a damper on my plans for the next couple days, but in hindsight, I wouldn’t change a single thing.
Surely college students have been doing this since higher education institutions started to pop up. This may very well be the only time where it’s OK to spend weekends trying to find a girl while blowing money on fancy drinks that get lit on fire and enjoying numerous slices of 99-cent pizza at 3 a.m. I mean, technically, you could do this after college, but then you risk getting stuck with the dreaded label of being that guy who can’t escape his college days. And no one wants that.
Listen, I’m not saying lets’ all blow money until the repo guys come banging on our doors. I’m simply saying that we are all looking for the same thing: just a couple memories that we can remember for the rest of our lives and cherished times we can tell our own kids about when they ask us about our college shenanigans. Certainly these moments can happen free of charge, but it’s more likely to cost you. All I’m trying to say is that no matter the financial value attached to your college memories, the price will likely always be right. Just don’t be afraid to pony up.
