what i learned in college

I've been on the interview circuit lately. No, not televised interviews, but I'm sure the offers from Oprah, Conan and my personal favorite, Bill Maher, are just over the bend, as soon as they get a whiff of my blog. Actually it's job interviews I'm talking about. I've actually come to enjoy the job interview as of late, but all of them have had one major flaw: I haven't gotten a new job yet. Anyway, that's not what I want to bitch about today because I'm sure that you, my dear and loyal readers, have had enough of that.

Now all interviews have their peculiarities, like what you're offered to drink, the awkward first handshake, the trivial information divulged... whatever...

What I want to talk about today is my favorite question I get in interviews: What did you learn in college?

Maybe this is just a European thing and you guys back in the states don't get this question, but it's one I love to field. Granted I give the standard answer. Something like that I learned how to think critically, analyze information on the basis of sources, evaluate what the author was trying to say, critically view what I'm reading and bla bla bla... that's all true, but I'm not going to bore you with treatise on the benefits of an Ivy League liberal arts education. I also think that college taught me to manage my time and how to write.

Okay, you can go ahead and laugh now.
[Inside the reader's head: You call this writing!>??!E@#$#@$#@$ My god man, the boy is having European delusions of grandeur. Someone throw him a line!]

(Author's note, I though of that joke earlier in the day while walking the dog and had to work it in somehow, which is why it's in such an strange place in the text. Just thought I'd give you a look under the lid of the creative process with this little piece of information. Consider it something like the member's section of an internet porn site. Now back to our regularly scheduled narrative.)

There are also the other things I learned in college, which before I list I would like to ask my mom and dad to skip the next paragraph.

First of all, I learned how to clean a bong, right after I learned how not to clean a bong. I also learned a lot about alcohol and it's effects on the brain. I even got laid a few times, and that counts as a learning experience, right? But that's par for the course in college, at least if you try to enjoy the experience.

Finally, we get what I really want to talk about. What I really learned in college is: cocktail party factoids. I'm not kidding. Of all the things I really remember from school, most of them revolve around stuff you would only use to impress people at cocktail parties.

By the way, I didn't come up with this term, as my history professor, Michael Steinberg, was the first to drop it in his class on 18th and 19th century European culture, which, now that I think about it, that entire course was nothing but cocktail party factoids.

Seriously, I find myself turning into my dad, who also knows lots of these little pieces of information. I've even dropped the "you know Napoleon had almost no teeth when he married Josephine, and she was the former mistress of Barrass, who was the head of the Directorium."

My parents must find it disturbing that they spent such an exorbitant amount of money on me learning trifles of information that only come in handy in social situations. However (and this is where the theory of why this is good comes in), I happen to think that these little pieces of information could come in handy.

Envision this: People, when I bust out some sort of bizarre and obscure factoid that no one else knows, become legitimately impressed. They suddenly start to think I'm smart. Then I could casually drop the name of the institution (in this case, it's an institution, when I talk about the drinking, it's college) I attended. Yeah, that's the ticket! People become more impressed. They think I really am smart and then this could open doors for me. That's not all that far-fetched right? I'm not just grasping at straws here trying desperately to validate my outragiously expensive education, right? I mean, my education in bong cleaning (don't read that mom) and everything else was not a complete loss, right? Come on guys and girls, back me up on this one...

Of course, you could get what happened to my dad (retired college professor) who was at a cocktail party dropping all kinds of bizarre little pieces of info on another professor and his new, very young and, might I add, blond girlfriend. After a short while, the girlfriend turned to my dad and said, "Wow, you sure do know a lot of useless shit."