Catch Me If You Can

Kids, over the past ten months of my life I have put more miles on my body than a used Ford Pinto after a cross-country race in the Sahara Desert.

And yet, here I go again.

For full effect, download “Meet Me In The City” by The Black Keys and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

For the record I would like to note that I have found it interesting my blog has been flying somewhat under the radar over the last few weeks. Maybe it’s because I’m not being controversial enough, or writing pieces that aren’t emotionally enthralling for you to push the like button on your Facebook feed. Could it be that I’ve just lost my skill as a writer this early on in my career? For whatever reason, I really don’t care. Because as I’ve said many times before, these blogs aren’t for you, they’re for my kids. They are a record of the misdeeds and foul-ups that happened to their Dad over the years. So go ahead and gloss over your scrolling newsfeed and forget these four minutes of cynical literature ever even happened.

Over the last ten months I have been everywhere. From Newport to Seattle, from Cabo to Chicago, and every cursewording pit stop in between. I’ve been on more flights than Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Catch Me If You Can. And here I now sit on an unmade hotel bed that room service forgot to take care of, blogging my life away in the remote corner of the world known as Boise, Idaho. Kids, the next ten days of my life will be bittersweet to say the least. This will be the fourth annual installment of the Napolean Dynamite Pacwest journey, and yes, will all you helicopter parents please send me your stereotypical pimple-poppers in droves and legions aplenty?

Every Teenager on this tour: “Uh yes, can I get a Pumpkin Mint Frappucinno with Hazelnut Cinnamon foam please?”

Starbucks Manager: “You can, but those drinks actually require a minimum of two nose piercings, Miss. Come back when you’ve joined the liberal world with the rest of us.”

You may have a warped perspective as to what my life is like as a college recruiter, roaming from city to city, coercing students left and right with lofty tales of higher education supremacy. You think I have a stockpile of memories stored away taking selfies at Kenawashee Falls, or the Rose Garden, or on top of the Stratosphere, places that small town folks all over my hometown have never before seen in a magazine. You think that a single traveling man traversing the western half of our country has a career that would make anyone with a sane understanding of common sense green with envy.

But sadly kids, these trips aren’t laced with all of the exciting moments you think they are, rather they are spent wandering from warehouse to warehouse giving the same seven second response to kids that haven’t grasped the concept that leggings are not an appropriate form of fashion that can be worn outside of one’s bedroom. They are spent trying to cram myself into mid-size rental cars so I can drive four hours from city to city. They are spent sitting on unmade hotel beds on Wednesday afternoons, answering a chain of e-mails and using blogging as my outlet meanwhile Seinfeld blares on in the background.

Don’t get me wrong, I have the best job in the world. I am surrounded by some of the best people, I have the best boss, I represent the best school, and am selling a product that is one of the best causes in the history of humanity. I L-word my life kids. I L-word eating Cheesecake Factory after knocking a college fair out of the park in Las Vegas. I L-word going to midnight movies by myself to detox after saying the same phrase to 78 consecutive parents in a row. I L-word the spark a kid gets in his eye when he comes to the personal realization that a college degree is actually an attainable goal for him to achieve.

But do I L-word the 4:15 am wake up calls from the front desk just so I can make it to the airport in time for my flight to Spokane? Or the way my car smells when I overload it with freshly printed info sheets and recruiting booklets? Or telling a pretty girl that I’d be happy to take her out to dinner again when I pull back into town in ten days? Or the inflammatory anger that my broken coccyx spreads throughout my back because he’s been in the same seated position for nine hours from St. George to Boise? Nah, that’s not my cup of tea at all.

But that’s life kids. It’s up, and it’s down, and it’s everything in between. And all we can do is put a smile on our face and take it one day at a time.

I think Ferris Bueller said something like that once…