Editor’s note: this article is a humor column.
Even after a month had passed, my first-year E-school self was still getting war flashbacks from finals. Those hours in Brown Library and Clem 1 left me hopeless, hungry and very greasy – but from the GPA I’d ended with, I couldn’t deny they’d produced real results. I distinctly remember the worst Wednesday of my life when I’d consumed nothing but beef jerky and white Monster.
But immediately after, an email hit my Outlook inbox announcing I’d officially earned an A on a dreaded group project and made that Wednesday worth it. Aside from the violent Clem 1 fluorescence, my temporary life of shower avoidance and forgetting to eat was putting me on track for the Dean’s List.
Until something totally unrelated to how putrid I smelled suddenly happened — I felt it in my gut. The anguish, even before it happened.
Another email on Outlook. A few swipes and I was shocked to see my internship. Canceled. There was something about federal budget cuts, and some DUMB initiative to reduce student internships within the USDA. They meant to tell me sooner but their intern correspondence intern was booted three months prior.
As an aspiring chemical engineer, my wildest hopes and dreams had been totally nerfed. I wondered, has any 19-year-old in a white-collar household ever suffered so much grief? I decided, at once, to wash away my previous successes feelings — and the grease in my man-bun — with a long hot shower. My lack of hygiene had led to immense academic success, but clearly it didn’t matter outside of the Clem stacks. My faith was broken.
Then it hit me. I couldn’t waste away my summer being a lazy frick. I was going to get my butt up and WORK – on myself. I got out of the shower and opened my Notes app. I would need a strict summer regimen, listed as follows.
3:57 a.m. — Wake up
3:58 a.m. — Peel off my mouth tape. This is essential for a prominent masculine jawline.
4:02 a.m. —Take three really long deep breaths in the mirror while closing my eyes and visualizing a prosperous future.
4:15 a.m. — Tie my robe and step into some silly slippers. Walk to my back porch. Remove the bathrobe and the slippers. Grip onto the porch railing for dear life and take several more deep breaths. Then burst into movement and crank out a whole eight pushups. Stand up and shake it all off.
4:17 a.m. — Walk back inside without the bathrobe or slippers.
4:20 a.m. — Begin icing my face using an ice roller. Wash my face but only with water.
5:30 a.m. — Dry off my face. Fetch a banana from the kitchen. Peel the banana. Throw the actual banana away. Keep the peel and rub on face.
6:30 a.m. — Take a freezing cold shower, and make a point to jump up and down thus proving how I’m really getting the blood flowing. Joe Rogan will be playing on my phone. Use a variety of soaps and an organic 3-ingredient shampoo. Or was that the 3-in-1?
6:45 a.m. — Begin drying off.
9:45 a.m. — Finish drying off. Why did that take so long?
10:00 a.m. — Step into my room. Jump into the air in my matching jammies.
10:05 a.m. — Return to ground having seamlessly changed into athleisure and enter my Cybertruck.
10:30 a.m. — Lift. Seven sets of bicep curls. Fifteen reps each. Seven sets of scroll through Yik Yak and finding snowflakes to troll.
3:30 p.m. — Drive home.
4:00 p.m. — I hear my phone vibrate. What now? I have no time for friends. I’m going ghost mode.
I picked up the phone anyway — it was Outlook, once again. Lockheed Martin. They’d reviewed my application and selected me to assist with a new project. Something about chemical warfare? I hadn’t known they did that. But it sounded dope ash ngl.
Since this life-saving second chance, I’ve ditched self-care and kissed hygiene goodbye. A wise man once said, “The lion does not concern himself with CeraVe facial cleanser.” I now live by this doctrine.
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