I was in the throes of despair, having had hardly any return on my educational investment: a four-year degree amounted to a piece of paper not worthy of wiping the shit off my ass. Thousands of dollars wasted, down the drain. Years of my life never to be recouped. Memories I couldn’t remember because I had been too busy getting wasted, drunk off my ass.

I was, indeed, a college graduate, but what did that matter in a society of college graduates where we all were swimming in worthless pieces of paper and thousands of dollars of debt for those worthless pieces of paper, only to end up in some startup or entry-level position?

Now, I’m not saying that I was owed anything, but it does seem that some reward, some gain, some profit should be had for all the work I put into my education. Strange thing is, education is not what I was sold on it being: it used to be about getting a good-paying job that fulfilled a person’s soul purpose in life; now, it’s about getting enlightenment and refinement. When did the game change?

It would have been nice to have known four years prior that a four-year degree is like that familiar four-letter word, which means getting bent over and repeatedly ramrodded with the facts. I had the facts now–too little, too late. What I could do with them, I did not know.

And that’s when I met Santa Claus.

He appeared out of nowhere, coming down a pole in the sky that reached right to my feet. I hadn’t noticed anything untoward, seeing as I was locked into staring at my phone.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Santa bellowed a jolly laugh.

“What the–?” I was startled.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Santa let out his joviality again.

“‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ to you,” I said.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” was all he replied.

I looked at the dumb motherfucker and began to eye him curiously. Was he cracked in the head? Was this a prank? Was he just an oversized AI-generated hologram of an NFT? But how? What was going on?

“Hey, Santa,” I began, “what the hell, man? I mean, what the fuck are you trying to do?”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Now, he was pleading with a look of deep concern in his eyes.

“Are you for real?” I asked.

“Ho. Ho. Ho…” was all I got back.

I reached out and touched him. He was legit in the flesh. I didn’t know what to do.

“Can you say anything other than ‘ho’?” I asked.

“Ho…ho…ho…” he meekly let out, shaking his head.

“Oh, fuck, Santa! You’re stuck only saying ‘ho, ho, ho’?” I couldn’t believe it, feeling mortified and so sad for the tub of jello.

Then I had a realization and learned something, which is why I’m writing this whole shit story to begin with: just like Santa was stuck saying “Ho! Ho! Ho!”, so I was stuck with my fucking school debt and worthless piece of paper of a degree. But I didn’t have to stay there: I could move beyond and begin to see the world for the magical place it was. Just like Santa appeared out of God knows where, so every moment appears out of nowhere, and with it come all kinds of magical things, like epiphanies, realizations, and suddenly-materializing Santa Clauses.

Like the old adage says, I can’t change the past, but I don’t have to let it define my present.

Now, I’ve got a new friend, who only says “Ho! Ho! Ho!”, and apparently I’m the only one who can see him, kind of like how I’m the only one who knows the stuff I know because of my college degree.

In the end, it’s not so much how much you make, but what you make with what you’ve got. And me and Santa, we’re best buds now. Fuck, I couldn’t believe it myself, unless I’d actually lived it.