School Daze...

As a 70th birthday present to myself, I ran away from home, enrolling in a small liberal arts college that was mainly populated by female art students. My dorm room held three other roommates, two girls, one boy.

From my first day there, I was mobbed. All the kids thought it was so cool to have this old guy full of tattoos going to college with them. Telling them wild stories about life. They hung on every word and I quickly became a campus celebrity, a Pied Piper.

Everybody wanted me to come to their parties.

We painted with watercolors under huge oak trees, accompanied by impromptu music sessions. We smoked a lot of pot and would lie around in the dorm, casually nude, discussing philosophy well into the night, while a few of the girls squabbled over who would get to groom my hair.

All of it was so much better than the little I could still remember of my first college experience 50 years prior.

Then the rain woke me up. Chica, our smallest dog who gets to sleep on the bed, had her ass turned almost into my face. I needed to pee immediately, and was still mouth breathing with a cold that wouldn't go away.

I had to be at work in a hour.

Now I'm wondering if there is any way for me to get back to school again tonight. I don't want to miss any classes, and my hair needs some serious TLC.