A Farewell To Converse: My Journey From Self-Righteous Hipster To Fraternal Gentleman

Nigel T. Hornberry9 years ago

“Lovely day,” I say aloud, as the boat we inhabit idles away from the sandy shores where our future leaders’ livers are failing faster than Johnny Manziel’s NFL career.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” I ask my fellow compatriot, tying her hair back after a few loose strands keep tickling my gooch.

She isn’t much for words, but she nods rather vehemently in agreement. I look down at my compass, hoping to impress her with my seamanship, but it’s stuck in the north position, perhaps even a little bit of a northeast tilt to it.

I scan the horizon, looking for foreign islanders to hand out LSD-laced blankets to, and I take the time and solitude to self-reflect upon the past four years that has been my college experience.

“You see,” I begin my soliloquy, “I did not come into school my freshman year as the man you see today.”

“Those shorts over yonder, hanging on the rails of the boat and not gently caressing my balls at the moment, used to be knee length, and made with more pockets than any rational human being could ever need.”

“This beer,” I continue, pointing to my bottle of Bud Light, “used to be filled with PBR, the piss of Joseph Stalin himself!”

“This sweet dad bod you see before you today, used to be criminally covered by the likes of v-necks and ironic graphic tees.”

I pause briefly and collect myself. I’m on beer 27 of the Wade Boggs challenge, so I pour one out and say a few words for the legend, may he rest in peace.

God dammit, where’s a skull and an heir to take over when you need it? Nevertheless, I settle on a bottle of Skull vodka, and my grandpa has promised me that he will leave me his lucrative midget prostitution ring he runs as soon as he finally kicks the bucket, and trips over said bucket and is left to die because the cheap fucker didn’t have Life Alert. So that’ll have to do.

“What a crying shame it is!” I bellow, raising my Skull to the sun.

“Ah, it’s in my eye!” my date rudely interrupts.

I place down the bottle of Skull. It did create quite the nasty glare in all fairness.

“What a crying shame it is, “ I begin again, “that I should come face to face with the prospect of graduation, just as I am beginning to tap into the titillating perks of the fraternal lifestyle. I could just spit in the face of graduation. SPIT I say!”

She looks up at me with hopeful eyes.

“No no, not you,” I assure her.

The haunting thoughts of responsibility, monogamy and missionary sex plague my inebriated mind. Captain Morgan stares wistfully into my soul as the few remaining drops of rum trickle down my throat.

Speaking of trickling down one’s throat, my date gets up and walks to the bow of the boat. “Only God Can Judge Me” reads her tramp stamp.

“Ironic,” I say to her.

She wipes her mouth. “I don’t know about that, but I’m pretty sure there’s some protein though.”

I look back at the bottle of rum.

“A captain always goes down with his ship… and I’m sinking this motherfucker,” I rationally and clear-headedly decide.

I calmly get out of my chair, and get to work on drowning my demons. I start with my vinyl record player, and put on Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”

The sheer weight of the record player and my unwarranted sense of superiority for having said record player is enough to tilt the boat forward, but it needs more baggage. Time to start digging deep.

I flock to my closet and shudder at what I find in its deepest and darkest corners. If a Hot Topic, Vans Warped Tour and Spencer’s were to have some weird underground orgy, my closet would be the unfortunate byproduct. I close my eyes, grab everything that I now hate about what I once was, and throw it all to the front of the boat’s deck.

It’s starting to take on water.

“Women and children first,” I say as I push my date overboard to safety. She starts screaming something, but Celine is belting out all the feels, thus making my date not only inaudible, but also irrelevant at this current moment.

After piling on my collection of obscure records, the boat is nearly perpendicular with the water. If this were Titanic, this would be the part of the movie where Leo isn’t winning an Oscar.

Finally, I get to my collection of shoes. What was once a cool shoe when the likes of Wilt Chamberlain and Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez wore them; Converse is now worn primarily by sorority girls and people who get offended by chalk, and thus have to go.

“Fare thee well my buoyant friend,” I say as the boat finally succumbs to the weight of my Converse shoes and all other memories of my past hipster ways. “Unlike ol’ Only God Can Judge Me, you shan’t be forgotten.”

As I turn around from the wreckage to swim back to shore, I see a familiar friend in the distance. A friend that always gives you the courage and strength to try something bold. A friend that keeps you warm on a chilly night. A friend that numbs you to the pain that is life, albeit, often numbing you in untimely coitus moments.

I finally reach my friend, floating lifeless in the water. I put my lips to hers, and let her sweet, fermented juices quench my thirst.

“Don’t ever let go Jack.”.

Image via Shutterstock