It is fall semester once again. And this year, like every fall semester since 1878, a new crop of freshmen and transfer students are arriving. We also have some students who took a few years off to do whatever it was they did. Since I wear the title of “Mr. Public Service” with a great deal of pride, I want to take a few minutes to acquaint or re-acquaint our new arrivals with the fundamentals of college life. Rule Number One: You are going to have to stand in line. Some of these lines will be unbearably long. The most grizzled of Disney World veterans will marvel at them. Complaining about the size of the line will not make it go any faster, nor will it eventually do away with it. Standing in line is your destiny. Accept it.
Rule Number Two: The line you are not in will always move faster that the one you are in. If you switch lines, your new line will immediately slow down while your former line will magically speed up. Science has yet to prove why this phenomenon occurs, but I can save you a lot of headaches and minor psychotic episodes by telling you this now.
Rule Number Three: There is not a single college, university or tech school in the country without a parking problem. Mississippi State is no different. Nothing you say, do or write will solve it. Again, it is your destiny. Accept it.
Rule Number Four: This one applies mainly to those who transferred from Alabama or Ole Miss. There is this thing called “class.” You need to go to it in order to pass. This is not some high-temple of politically correct sensitivity like Stanford or Harvard. People can still fail classes here. It’s kind of like real life in that regard.
Rule Number Five: The campus police are not an infernal army of soulless demons whose only source of pleasure is the suffering of mortal college students. They are just regular Jacks and Jills trying to do a job. Don’t give them all nine levels of Dante’s hell when they write you a ticket. Just smile, nod and appeal your ticket to the traffic court.
Rule Number Six: At some point this semester or next, you are going to be approached by someone running for something. It’ll be Student Association, homecoming court or something like that. Now while I am a firm believer that people should exercise their right to vote, I dislike vigorous campaigners who don’t say so much as two words to you until they need your vote. So, when one of these people asks for your vote, do what my wife did when one of Ronnie Musgrove’s pollsters called our house to ask for our “support”: tell the campaigners that voting for them is against your religion. Or you can take the John “Beavis” Beasley approach. One day, back on the quad at Valdosta State University, my lifelong pal and I were accosted by a candidate for Homecoming Court. He told the poor young lady, “Sorry sweetie, but you’re just too ugly for my vote.”
Last but not least, take this advice when it comes to dealing with administrative bureaucracy:
A) Assume nothing. The first three letters of “assume” should tell you all you need to know about doing that.
B) Don’t trust anybody who doesn’t readily give you his or her name. People who freely give out their name freely accept responsibility for what they tell you.
C) Make copies of everything. It’s sort of like making sure to wear clean underpants-you just never know.
D) Don’t stop bothering people until you get a straight answer. Remember that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
And so, my friends, these are the rules. Bear in mind, they were not etched in stone by the finger of God, so not following them won’t result in your eternal damnation. But they will save you some time and sanity.