Bookstores dedicate a majority of their square footage to self-help books because anybody who can write a decent sentence can publish a “Guide to This” or another “Men are from Mars.” The people at WTF? shamelessly fall under this category.
The newest edition in their series, “WTF? College: How to Survive 101 of Campus’s Worst F*#!-ing Situations,” lifts self-help to a new level. The pocket-sized book holds every scenario the college student could possibly face, from dorm problems to woes over professors and girlfriends.
Just like the first day of a new semester means reading syllabi for every class, the introduction summarizes the book in a similar fashion. Forget everything you heard about college from anyone else because “the truth is that they were lying.”
Writers Gregory Bergman and Jodi Miller are your instructors, drawing from their drunk, drug-induced college days to drop pearls of wisdom into the laps of unsuspecting freshmen. What makes this book valuable is that Bergman and Miller, like any good writer or instructor, know their audience: trouble-making pompous a-holes who think they know everything when in reality they know nothing.
The guide is separated into 10 easy chapters, starting with orientation, to graduation and ending with a final exam and an answer key – they know they’re dealing with shmucks who will just flip to the back for answers. In each chapter, clearly numbered situations are listed followed by steps or options to remedy said situation. Granted, some of these situations and relative solutions would not happen, even in a parallel universe or dimension, to the average student. But running with the tongue-in-cheek tone of the book, it’s fathomable there is someone somewhere who could benefit from Bergman and Miller’s advice.
Situation No. 59 says “You Need to Build Your Resume But You Hate People.” In general, this isn’t something a regular, sociable young adult has to deal with. But there is the occasional angry, awkward teen who despises this world of pathetic debutantes who refuses to sign up for extracurricular activities. Resolution? Suck it up and join a club.
Bergman and Miller offer suggestions like volunteering for a suicide prevention hotline. “Misery loves company … And since you hate people anyway, you’ll probably get a kick out of it.”
Other suggestions include joining chess club to mingle with other loners, working with animals to avoid human contact or simply lying on your resume. If you’re thinking of starting your own club, the authors also offer helpful titles of “clubs not accepted by the student government board,” like Waterboarding club, Kill Whitey club, My Girlfriend is a Whore club and Inquisition Re-enactment club.
Each situation is more ridiculous than the last. The solutions are particularly hilarious. Free-flowing curse words, stereotypes, generalizations and sex, drugs and rock and roll ooze out of this survival guide.
This book makes me wish I could go back in time, live at the dorms, clog the only working stall on my floor and try steps one through four to see if they actually work. Listed options start with “Take off.” Run away and let someone else take the fall. Option two, “Close the lid and pray.” Pray and pray hard that the “mountain of feces” doesn’t’ overflow and put an “Out of Order” sign on the door. Third option, “Trash the bathroom.” Make it look like drunken hobos destroyed the place and report it. You’re now the dorm hero. Last option, “Mark your territory.” Own what you did. Smear that shit all over the place. The only downside is no one will go near you again.
“WTF? College” may be an unrealistic view of college life that is irrelevant to 99 percent of students, but man is it funny.