TOP TEN CLASSES I'D LIKE TO SEE OFFERED IN HIGH SCHOOL

Top Ten Classes I'd Like to See Offered in High School

10. Beginning Marriage
Pre-requisites: Debate, Advanced Boyfriend/Girlfriend (Cannot be taken concurrently)
Endlessly argue about minor things from what's for dinner, to major life decisions about where to live and work. Give up half your closet space and all of your freedom.

9. Advanced Divorce
Topics include: failure, loneliness, and bankruptcy. Midterm is a court-appointed session with a psychologist. Final exam requires you spend one weekend a month convincing two wet-eyed preschoolers that mommy and daddy still love them.

8. Sick Kid (Offered as Night Course Only)
Spend the entire semester at night in actual waiting rooms on hard plastic chairs with a small child in distress. Comfort yourself that at least your kid isn't as messed up as the other freakshows seeking help. Contract whatever exotic disease your precious angel brought home from that seething cesspit called daycare. At the end of this course successful students will be able to go without sleep, health insurance, or a diagnosis.

7. Soul-crushing Job (Internship)
Ignore all basic human qualities of pride, creativity, and self-determination while filling out TPS reports in a 3x3-foot cubicle. Midterm will require you sacrifice pay, status, and self-respect in deference to vague undefined corporate goals set by hostile management with less education that you. Final grade will be based on how well you do this without being noticed or singled-out for any reason.

6. Advanced Girlfriend
Learn to apologize, how wrong you are, and that it's your fault, while explaining just where the hell you have been. Rack up bottomless cell phone charges calling to check-in. During the term of this course, students will not be allowed to watch an entire game or sleep through Oprah. Limited access to beer, chicken wings, and buddies. Midterm is an oral exam to talk about your feelings. Final exam is an unassisted major jewelry purchase.

5. Conversational Boyfriend I
Mandatory lab supplies: new clothes, new shoes, new haircut
Blow your paycheck at the mall and submit to a Brazilian wax. Drink caustic cosmos while the instructor drones on endlessly about his car and his mother. Midterm is a "date" at Hooters to discuss the ultimate fantasy football lineup. Final grades will be released if he calls you back.

4. Insurance Claim (Lab)
Meet three hours a day, three days a week, in the phone lab to be put on hold waiting to speak with an insurance adjuster in Bangladesh. Attempt to decipher your policy, deductible, and coverage. Explore modern techniques to deal with interminable delay, how to document minutiae, and claim denial. Final exam is a take-home essay to the Department of Insurance explaining what happened in detail and requesting relief.

3. Intermediate Banking
Deposit your money and then attempt to withdraw it in one of three ways: Students will learn to navigate a menu-driven ATM written in hieroglyphics, try to cash a check, or balance a debit card statement.
Note: A $5.00 fee is charged every time you to speak to the instructor personally.

2. Run for Local Government
Pick an issue and run for the minor office of your choice. If elected, students will attend mind-numbing policy meetings embroiled in subviolent debates about retaining-wall permits and barking dogs. You will balance a budget, comply with state and federal mandated bullshit, and endure thankless pancake breakfasts. Final exam includes running for higher office and being summarily trounced by a local weatherman wearing a feather boa.

And the number one class I'd like to see offered in high school...

1. Buy a House (Colloquium)
Pre-requisite: Soul-crushing Job (Must be taken concurrently)
Recommended: Insurance Claim (Lab)
This class requires a year's salary as a deposit. Then mortgage your future and freedom while filling out more paperwork than a law clerk. Be prepared to prove where all of your money has come from including your allowance when you were twelve and any change found in your couch cushions. First half of semester will be spent attempting to get a loan officer to return your phone call. Second half of semester will be spent translating what the loan officer said into English. Your final exam is a complete kitchen and bathroom remodel for older homes, or processing multiple construction defect claims for newer homes. No grades will be released until escrow closes.

-Jason Rohrblogger
(8/3/08)