Flunk You!

Today, I was minding my own business, standing out in the hall visiting with a couple of my drama and speech girls when a fellow teacher (and fellow Knox alum) came walking up to me with this sly grin on his face. Before he even opened his mouth, I knew. It's Flunk Day. As soon as he said the words, I raised my fists in celebration and gave out a long, sustained "WOOOOO!" that stunned my two students and the others standing around at their lockers. I quickly explained to my students what Flunk Day is -- a day at Knox College that happens each spring when, basically, the world stops for a day and you engage in the most fun possible -- playing games, dancing in the streets, drinking copious amounts of, um, liquids, and generally basking in the glory that is being a college student devoid of any real responsibility. It is like Ferris Bueller's Day Off with more inflatable toys and fewer uptight principals. It is heavenly.

Of course now, Flunk Day sort of fills me with a little bit of melancholy as I long for those days of yore when all of my friends and I lived together in a sort of state of ignorant bliss, when the worst worry you had was whether or not you were going to get your paper done on time, and when the repercussions of spending a day drinking were no more serious than a hangover the next morning in class (or maybe throwing up in a trash can in your friend's suite, but I digress seeing as I know NO ONE who would have ever done such a thing -- or spent the majority of her senior year Flunk Day passed out in her room, sleeping off the massive amounts of vodka she attempted to drink in a very, very short amount of time). I miss those days of lounging on Old Main lawn listening to drunken classmates "sing" karaoke. I miss those evenings of dancing in the Quad. I even miss the inevitable donut fights in the middle of the street outside the Phi Delt House. Sometimes, being a grown up is just no fun!

So I wish all of you -- be you Siwash, Prairie Fire, or none of the above -- a very happy Flunk Day. Go home tonight and stir up a little blue Kool-Aid and vodka and remember those times when the livin' was easy, when the food was free, and Mom and Dad (or student loans) paid your rent. You may not be able to go home again, but you can at least visit it in spirit.