Oh, Honey...

Have you ever had one of those conversations where you think is going great and then whoever you’re talking to says one thing that you just can’t get down with and you can’t hide your disdain/disbelief/disgust?

I can honestly say that’s only ever happened to me once. I was a freshman in college and I was at breakfast with this guy I sort of liked. Everything was great and he was nice and charming until he started talking about how when he went home he’d write what he wanted for breakfast on a piece of paper for his mother to find every night and how he liked George Bush and I never spoke to him again. There were other things that went wrong in that conversation—it was one God-awful thing after another—but those are the ones I remember.

Then last week happened.

Last week was grad school orientation (yes, last week as in “most of the days in the week”) and I somehow ended up sitting next to the same girl every day. We got along as well as you get along with people you meet in orientation until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, one of the advisors spoke about the portion of a seminar class that she’d be taking. This girl—let’s call her Honey—and I figured out that we were both taking said seminar this semester, so after all the, “Oh yay, I’ll know someone!” we actually paid attention.

Or at least we did until career goals got mentioned.

The advisor, Jamie, with whom I have since bonded because we both hate Paris, said that eventually in her class we’d be putting down our career goals. The general idea was, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” only, you know, for jobs. Considering we’re spending tens of thousands of dollars on higher-higher education, it’d probably be a good idea to have some sort of a plan. I like to have plans—I need them, really, but while I was nodding appreciatively at Jamie’s 10 Year Plan assignment Honey was frowning.

“Ten years?” she said distastefully. “I hope to be a homemaker by then!”

That was when she lost me.

Let me get this straight. You’re here paying upwards of $40,000 a year for a two year degree that you plan on no longer using in a hypothetical 5 years. I figure that 5 years is a pretty good estimate because everyone seems to be at least 22 and ovaries have a shelf life. That’s five years including the two you’re going to spend in grad school, so you really have three years to be in the workforce utilizing this $80,000+ investment you’ve made. Three years. Three. Years.

Is that $80,000 investment going to pay off in three years?

No.

Are you wasting a lot of money?

Yes.

…oh, Honey.

That, boys and girls, is hands down one of the Top 5 Craziest Things I’ve Heard All Year. It’s not that fact that she wants to be a homemaker. At a school like Clemson you hear a lot about girls going to college just to get their Mrs. From what I heard in undergrad, it’s a pretty common practice (that I don’t understand). Besides, I actually think staying home to keep the house is becoming a lost art (that I will never help to revive). All y’all housewives and househusbands go out there and be the best little housepeople (is that politically correct?) you can possibly be.

But if you fully plan on leaving your career in a few years to stay home with Johnny and Susie, why oh why are you spending upwards of $80,000 on a master’s degree? I didn’t know what to say. And so I said what I always say when I don’t know what to say.

“Oh God.”

Looking back I probably should have just smiled and nodded. Oh well. Hindsight’s 20/20. What I did figure out is that, “Oh God,” was not the response Honey was looking for. We didn’t speak another word for the rest of orientation. We do smile and say hi in the bathroom, though.

Oh, Honey.