I don’t think 10 days of pure debauchery came even close to describing what it is to go home for Thanksgiving from College. Here’s the best analogy I can think of: In high school, you are Thomas Anderson. You know that something out there is better than the life you are living right now, but have no idea what it is.
When you go to college, and come back for Thanksgiving, it’s like you are Neo, and you have suddenly recognized that you are the one. You’ve realized that The Matrix is nothing more than childs play. Suddenly things that seemed impossible are now probable. Suddenly, you are in control of everything. The only limit is yourself, and you’re bent on doing some impossible ass shit.
The only un-cool part of going home is the ‘going’ part. Traveling sucks. Traveling with stuff that can easily be misconstrued(Correctly construed?) for stuff that is a bomb really sucks. Last time I went back to Arizona from NJ, they took all my airplane stuff and had to swab it to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. The lady was really nice about it, even though I thought it was funny as hell. She asked all about what I do with this stuff, and why I like airplanes and whatnot. She did so out of general interest. Anyway, this morning, half asleep, I get the weird peering into the X-Ray screen, and then the obligatory, “IS THIS YOUR BAG?!” Then the lady was like “What’s inside?” I said something about a radio control. Then she says, “FOR AIRPLANES!?” I said yeah, and I smiled because I remembered her. Clearly, she remembered me and said “You again?!” We exchanged pleasantries as she was checking my airplane stuff for explosives. That kind of made my day.
Joshua Ziering