Just the other day, I was walking back to around my old stomping grounds, where, finally having only four years between me and a real life, a real career, and owning some real estate, was very imminent.  I could spend those four years partying and celebrating my imminent status, or, I could spend my time, studying, and eventually, buying my way into some status.

The truth is, no student is every the “perfect student.”  As soon as you get the letter in the mail, you immediately start ranking the courses, and the classes.  There will be those that I will spend an hour a week on, outside of the three hour lecture, and there are those, where, I will go to every lecture, do every essay, write every exam, and even send my Professor email about.  Which is of course the equivalent to waiting, preying, and pouncing on the poor Professor at the end of lecture.

Well, this is how it starts, and it is, I guess, a plan that should work, but then, facing reality, I never really attended every lecture, I only listened to what I wanted to listen to, and I only wrote what I thought was the truth, or, should be the truth.  Why?  Because I was “partying for four years” my just accepted, imminent status.  To this day, I am unsure what it is that should come from a four-year-degree.  I am appreciative of my status, as it is a sieve and a sorting machine to everyone, including those who do not attend college and university.  How true?  Maybe true.

As long as I am not dependent on the public to garnish my wages, which is dependant on my ability to look beautiful to the general public, then , I consider myself lucky.  Having people who are the educated, the qualified, to hire and fire me, makes me assured, and confident, that “yes” I do have a job, I do, have talent and enough brains, and smarts, to be worthy of it all.

So, back to the other day.  I just happened to have to meet a client near the University, just off-campus.  As I was leaving and walking back to my car, I happened to notice a new cafe lounge. I was in the place where a cheap dive was.  This place used to attract students in the area almost every night of the week.  Lots of bands, and sometimes just a DJ, so, Rave-like, anyone could spend $5 and dance the entire night.  Well, now, there was a place called “Castle.”  On the sign, was the “subtitle,” Board Game Cafe and Lounge.  It seemed to me that some student, like me, who used to hang out at the students’ lounge on campus, like me, thought it would be cooler to walk off the grounds and visit a place that could offer board games.  My question, immediately, is … “I can play a board game while drunk?”

As I was in a hurry that day, I did not open the door and walk in.  But, in my imagination, is that two possible things can happen…..  The interior could be completely quiet, much like a library, where gamers will play with each other on the board games, whispering all their moves, muffling their cries of victory, or there could be nice “lounge music,” a darkened interior, and a sea of voices, a clink of glasses, and the sounds of gamers playing with each other at a board game.  Both can fact the same result: not enough of either type of student.  I am not sure I can make it off-campus in, let’s say, the extra two or three hours I have between classes.  And Saturdays, back in my day, were the best day to rush my homework, so that I could drink myself drunk that evening and sleep in the next day.  There were times I even consistently invested in Sunday Brunch for a semester with one of my other classmates. So, in any case, I feel “Castle” is caught in between two groups of students.  Those who are quiet and those who want to get drunk doing something different, like cow-tipping while drunk, if you’re in the country.  The people who truly have the time and money to just “drop by” Castle, are those who are newly graduated.  Those, perhaps, not quite into the starter-job, yet, but still have some money, and time, and are sill keen on that student-single-fun lifestyle.

As for myself, I saw this store front, and felt nostalgia for that two-storey dance pad.  I loved leaving all the books, all the paper, the computer, and the laptop at home, in my rented room.  The thing I would love to go to Castle for, is any drink I can’t have at home.  But, nowadays, this place has come too late for me.  I am owning a car that I cart my kids and husband around in.  All those extra hundreds that could be spent if I were more frugal?  I buy trinkets–jewellery, cute-toy hangars, a chocolate bar, appetizers, desert, and the prettier body wash and body lotion.

I wonder, when there will be no more babies born, what will happen to these “Board Game Cafe and Lounges?”  I have curiosity to go in, but i also have the experiences to know that these novelty, niche, experiences, tend to disappear.  It is too quiet or too much activity.  I move slowly now, and even in my middle age, I will only move at any speed, if I am not distracted by silence.  It’s funny.  I have yelled at my kids so often, to be quiet, and here I am admitting that I don’t work, that I don’t do anything, if all I have is silence.  The radio will always be on.  The typing from the next cubicle keeps up pace.  The phone rings.  And what I call silence falls in between.  This is a world I work in, and I have found, it is a world that I love.  So, kids and husband!  Keep it down!!