REASONS TO STAY IN COLLEGE

The best bonding comes from the strangest situations. I worked in a hellhole for my first job. My boss sold weed from the back room, encouraged threesomes and alcohol at the Christmas party (yes, I was in high school), and called his employers "lil shits". I had some great times at that restaurant.

Two of my good friends worked at the restaurant we nicknamed TheBoy. We dealt with the mice running through the back room, emptying all the pepper into a container and then pouring it back in (which is not the most pointless thing on the hostess' work list), and cleaning up the floors with a broken broom after the vacuum died. We were miserable at TheBoy but honestly, I do get a bit nostalgic thinking about it. It was a small town and it felt very midwestern to carry around the decaf coffee for a top off. I used to laugh with my friends as we'd do impersonations of our boss's nasally voice. My friends and I would talk about how badly we wanted to get out of there.

When I went home over winter break to pick up my W2s, which of course my boss didn't send out, I went into the building I spent a year of my life at. I didn't miss it; the workers were new and middle-aged but I missed the time when I was working there with my friends. Reading the Detroit Free Press at 11:00 p.m. while I was waiting for my till to be counted was one of the things that solidified how badly I wanted to go into journalism. I wanted to escape my small town and write about the world; I wanted to get away from the minimum wage job at home.

Being back in that place, I really started to miss those times with my friends at TheBoy. I used to write cryptic poetry on the napkins about the customers. I started to miss the life I had. Then I saw my old boss-- I'm glad I'm at SBU.