Josh A. Cagan
The cafeteria pizza at BU is disgusting, but you and the kids you’re hanging out with eat it because it’s Friday night and hey, you’re freshmen. You’re wearing a plastic Dick Tracy movie-tie-in hat. (You’re trying to make that your “thing.”)
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I said “the kids you’re hanging out with,” and not “your friends.” Your friends are a distant, candy-coated memory.
Why you’re even hanging out with these kids is a mystery, because as far as you’re concerned, nobody likes you. You’re not doing great in class, and nobody else wants to talk about cartoons and Muppets—instead, they want to talk about Shakespeare and Chekhov. Everyone else came from fascinating places, they’ve had amazing lives, and they seem like they were born into a life in the theater.
You’re some boring guy from a boring suburb.
So for the first part of your freshman year, you try to communicate to everyone at all times that YOU ARE DIFFERENT AND SPECIAL. If you could wear a gold dookie chain around your neck that said that, you would. (Although you probably would have spray-painted it black first. You wear a lot of black, hoping you can make that your “thing.”)
You wear a different pair of crazy sunglasses every day of the week, hoping you can make that your “thing.”
You never work with other students unless it’s absolutely demanded of you, and instead you present bombastic monologues about murder and loneliness, hoping you can make that your “thing.”
You work your ass off to prove to people that you are awesome, smart, edgy, and talented. You work harder at that than you do at any actual schoolwork, harder than you even work on your own art. Whether you know it or not, this is what has actually become your “thing.”
Still, thank God you live in a dorm. Because regardless of your social status (real or imagined), if you have two dollars to throw toward pizza, you can sit in some other kids’ room and eat some of that pizza. So yeah, the cafeteria pizza at BU is disgusting, but you and the kids you’re hanging out with eat it, because it’s Friday night and you’re freshmen. And despite my earlier warning, you’re still wearing that plastic “Dick Tracy” hat. (Don’t get me started.)
You take a wad of napkins and begin to blot the orange grease off of your slice. Then you look at the wad of napkins and say out loud (but mostly to yourself), “I should just rub this on my face and cut out the middleman.”
Everyone looks at you like the dog just talked.
And then they laugh. It’s your first real laugh at college. You probably don’t think much about it, but trust me, this is HUGE.
Because for the first time in your college career, you didn’t open your yap to complain about how nobody understands you, or how everyone is so phony, or to brag about how many pairs of sunglasses you own.
You observed something that was funny to you, and you said it. Not because you thought it would be the coolest thing to say, not because you thought it would make people think you were brilliant, but just because you were being yourself.
And as it turned out, you being yourself made people like you. It still does.
In other words, you finally found your “thing.”
Thank heavens. That hat was ridiculous.
Josh A. Cagan @joshacagan co-wrote 2009’s Bandslam, which received a 90% Fresh rating from Top Critics on RottenTomatoes.com. He also developed and co-wrote the 2001 animated series Undergrads. Recently, CBS Films optioned his adaptation of Kody Keplinger’s The Duff, with McG producing. He is paid to write jokes and stories with his friends, so in other words, he lived happily ever after. He lives in Hollywood with his wife, Kayla, and their stuffed animals.