My Chance

Have you ever wanted to be someone different? I realize I have finally gotten my chance, perhaps my one and only chance, to play the part of someone other than me. Here, in a new place, where no one knows me or has any other expectation than that I am either smart enough or rich enough to have gotten here. Spent the last 23 years of my life in one place, building up expectation after expectation of my personality and character. But not anymore, oh no, no sirree. I am going by Cathleen. Close enough that I will still turn my head when I hear it called, yet with such an entirely different nuance. I will be rich, NOT smart, thank goodness. I got in because daddy had big bucks and knew the dean of students back in his college days. I drive a Mercedes-Benz in order to fit in with all the other 149 students I will be spending every waking hour of the next four years of my life with, and we will appropriately discuss the hilarity of cutting off the masses in their Oldsmobile Aleros and throw back our heads and laugh at the rising costs of fuel, for our pocketbooks are not affected by such news. I will eat red meat at every meal, except for when I choose mahi-mahi or shrimp cocktails instead. No one will cheat off my test or ask to study with me because I will play dumb and chew and pop my gum and whisper loudly during lectures to make the people who are taking out loans to attend this school wish that I were dead. Or just poorer. I will spend all my free time poring over Cosmopolitan and figuring out what color nail polish will go best with my brand new J.Lo sweatpants suit. Probably coral. Pink is SO last year. And if you miss me and want to catch up on what is going on in my life, I probably won't have time to write to you, but don't fret, you can always look me up in each UMNews' edition's gossip column; I plan to make the weekly headlines.