Editor’s note: The following is a continuing journal of a fictional college student. It is intended to be a humorous and enjoyable feature about an average Joe. It runs weekly, on Fridays. Though written by Iowa State’s own Scott Jacobson, a Daily staff writer, people, places and events detailed below are not analogous to a real student.

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December 13, 1996

So there I was dancing, glad that at least a few of my friends actually did well enough in their classes to finally graduate next week.

And gladder yet, that they had a party to kill all the brain cells that they had spent five-and-then-some years building up.

You see, Eddie had his semi-annual graduation party last night and for the third semester in a row, I’ve gotten completely schnookered at my buddy’s expense.

Ever since last fall, Eddie’s been under the illusion that he’s going to graduate at the end of the term.

So each semester he’s had a graduation party at the bar with some friends and each semester we get biggety-bam boombastic and then the next week, he figures out that he won’t be getting his diploma as planned.

The first time he had his hopes shattered was because he thought his seven P.E. classes counted as biology credits.

Then last fall, he was pissed because he had taken all the wrong classes because he had changed majors as a second-year freshman and never told his advisor.

To round out the trilogy of academic disappointment, he just found out last week that he’s not graduating this semester either.

It turns out that he failed his 8 o’clock history class, because a couple weeks into the semester, he somehow forgot that he had an 8 o’clock class.

When he got the midterm, he just figured that it was a misprint, so he busted his ass in all of his other classes, not sure which one he was really failing.

As a result, he aced all of his other classes, but that damn 8 o’clock still got the best of him.

When I asked him if he was pissed he was going to be here another semester, all he said was, “Nope, it’s a blessing in disguise. God just wanted me to enjoy another VEISHEA.”

So there I was, dancing my booty off at his not-quite-graduation party and I see Chelli rumpshakin’ across the floor.

Being in the holiday spirit, as well as several other spirits on top of that, I strolled over to her in my hey-baby-I-just-want-to-talk-to-you-so-don’t-walk-away-so-fast way and turned on my mack-daddy vibe.

We started out with the typical “Doesn’t Dead week suck” and “When are you finally done” discussions and then I asked her what she was up to over break.

“Well, I won’t have a break. I graduate next week. You didn’t know that? This is my graduation party.”

When I assured her that it was Eddie’s party and that she must be drunk, she informed me that her friend had set this up and filled me in on the connection between her and Eddie.

“You see, I lived on the same floor with the girl that knew a baseball player that dated someone who had a class with this guy who worked with the girl who dated Eddie’s high school buddy.”

Boy, it’s a helluva good thing Chelli and I didn’t hook up. She’s damn near related to my best friend.

She then went on to tell me that she was planning on heading home in January, but she was going to come back down to visit quite a bit.

I told her that Eddie and I were going to have a soon-to-be-legendary VEISHEA party (since he was still going to be around) and she should plan to be there.

Then she laid the smack down, tore my feeble little heart out, spit twice on it and ground it into the beer-stained dance floor.

“Well, I’ll be living with the guy I’ve been going out with since high school, but I’m sure I could talk him into coming down for the weekend.”

I nodded slowly, feeling the whiskey curdle in my poor tummy and I tried to mutter something, anything, to save face, “That would be … great. I’d love to meet him.”

Women … can’t live with ’em, can’t watch Disney shows without ’em.

I congratulated her on her graduation (tough to say 10 times fast) and walked off the dance floor in search of a whiskey sour, my little kitty cat from Halloween and Eddie.

All I can say is that it’s a damn good thing Eddie only has one graduation party a semester.