One choice affects your future success.

You look at Pace University.

You look at Florida State University.

You look at the Michigan Institute of Technology.

Searching for colleges has got to be one of the most tedious things ever. It's sadomasochism, Disney style. You sit at your computer and stare at the screen for hours, seeing what the college has to offer and picturing yourself in it. The past two days alone, I've made metaphysical appearances in about twenty different colleges.

Everything seems to be rushing at me now, crushing me below a weight so heavy that my chest is likely to cave in any minute now. Just you wait. Come September 13, I'll probably be on a wheelchair and a respirator.

You look at St. Joseph's University.

Last night, my dad took me over to the Centereach road test site. I don't know the exact route myself, and neither does he, so we spent about an hour predicting where I would have to turn, where I would have to parallel park, where I would have to do the three-point turn. Where I'd fail the test. Where I'd hide the corpse of my examiner.

You know. The basics.

We've been doing this for a while, too. I've got a lot riding on whether or not I get my license. It's almost as pressuring as college.

Besides, I don't want an angry Drea breathing down my neck about failing.

My father's been putting most of the pressure on me though. It's like this with every parent. All of them have a wish to see their son or daughter succeed in life, but none of them want their child to be more successful than they are. So, they give you every opportunity you need, help you out on your way to success. But the minute you start doing something better than they can, they withdraw their support and find excuses to get angry at you with, thereby undermining you and destroying your self-esteem and turning you into a rebellious-spirited adolescent.

God, I love my parents.

The past few weeks, my father's been on either of two modes - search for college and driving. It's getting to be quite scary too. When we go to family parties, my dad will brag about how I'm going to get accepted into this college or that college. Or he'll talk about his future expectations of me becoming a physician.

It appears that I'm going to be a cardiovascular surgeon/specialist that graduated from Harvard Medical School that's won the Nobel Prize for finding the cure for cancer, AIDS, and all STDs. Not to mention, I'm married to some Hollywood actress that just won the Oscar for Best Lead Female in a movie that won Best Picture. I think I've also gone to the moon on various occasions and helped colonize Mars.

Then, when we're alone, he'll talk about my driving and then criticize what I've been doing. A thousand times over. It's getting to be that I can predict exactly what he'll say the moment he gets home, the moment we're in the car, the moment he opens up his mouth.

You look at San Diego State University.

You look at Iona College.

Last night when we got home from driving, I had to force myself into college search mode. Meanwhile, my father's handing me the mail we receive from Nowhere University, USA. I'm afraid to tell him what colleges I'm looking at now, because then he blows up into excitement and all of a sudden, selects twenty other colleges I might be interested in. About fifteen of them will be Catholic universities.

"So have you looked at NYU?" he asks me.

"Not yet," I reply. "I'm going to tonight."

"Well, look at Fordham and Hofstra and --"

"I got it, dad."

He goes downstairs to exercise and meanwhile, I'm left up with the computer to search for his future.

Searching for a college that's just right for you is like trying to pin the tail on the ass of a donkey (or ass, if you prefer) while blindfolded and dizzy on the Titanic as it sinks. Sure, the place looks appealing, but then again, everything looks appealing when you first see it. That's how they sucker you into choosing them.

See also: ex-girlfriends.

You look at Sarah Lawrence College.

You look at UCLA.

There's a catch that appears with every college. It may offer you great housing, cable TV in every room, a game room, a weight room, a study lounge. It doesn't allow you to bring the car your parents gave you as your gift for graduating senior year. It may offer you an honors program, a special house for honors students, full tuition to be paid. It's also located three planes and a Greyhound away. It may offer you every Greek life from Alpha Beta Kappa to Sigma Pi Sigma and free beer and fake IDs. It's also for the opposite sex only.

"Christ, there must be thousands of these schools perfect for me that suck," I say under my breath as I make my metaphysical appearance in SUNY Stony Brook.

For some reason, the song "Ironic" is imbedded in my head.

You look at C.W. Post.

You look at Iona College. Again.

About an hour into my search and I'm already frustrated. There's sweat beading at my brow and pouring out of my hands. The keyboard is already wet with my perspiration. My vision is clouded and blurry. All the words begin to run together and don't make sense.

Don't worry. There's no medical attention needed. This is your standard college search day.

In extreme cases, the searcher spontaneously combusts.

Meanwhile, my father's downstairs still exercising. He doesn't have to worry about this anymore. In fact, paying the tuition is probably the most distant thing from his mind. On the treadmill, he's fantasizing about the fishing boat that I buy him after I set up my own practice somewhere in the city and become world-renouned as the best heart surgeon, having completed over 400 open-heart surgeries in the course of six months. Then his mind wanders over to where he'll go fishing.

You look at UC Berkeley.

You look at the University of Connecticut.

You look at Boston College.

These are the conditions that I search for. The college must be (a) private, (b) 4-year, (c) have an honors program, (d) in New York, (e) accepts SAT scores below 1300, (f) have english, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and physics programs for the MCATs, (g) equipped with a Starbucks.

If conditions (e), (f), and (g) are met, the college is up for further consideration.

Additional conditions include (h) greater ratio of female to male students, (i) early action available, (j) presence of (1) 7-11 and/or (2) Wendy's, (k) many females, (l) fewer males.

Yes, I'm picky. And horny.

You look at Colgate University.

You look at New York University.

If you can't tell, I hate looking for college. Nothing seems appealing anymore, especially after going through two hundred different college in the course of three hours. The ones that do happen to stand out for me though are Georgetown, Iona, and St. Joseph's. Pace and Hofstra are maybe's.

Forget about Ivy Leage colleges. I doubt anyone I know will get into one anyway, even me, so I'm not even going to bother looking there. Besides, to get in, your father, grandfather, and great grandfather must have been alumni, your family donates $30,000,000 to create a wing on the campus, or you're a genius with schizophrenia that's in the middle of composing a symphony with the aid of Dick and Tom your imaginary friends.

The one thing I really hope for is that I'm not stuck with something I'll regret for the next four years. It's a pretty hard decision.

You look at your future, exploding in your face.