I am honored that you're reading this.

I am honored by everyone who has confessed to me that they read this.
I am blown away by anyone who has ever approached me on campus or at a
party or at Old Navy to tell me so. Not that I shop at Old Navy.
Without a fake mustache.

I was going to make my last column just another column but longer. It
was going to chronicle a summer temp job I had. It would have taken up
at least one full page and I figured I'd get a few laughs from at
least my parents, even though I would have had to explain the
inevitable Big Brother Jake and Eureeka's Castle references to them.
At the beginning of the semester, the idea I had for my final column
was a complete deconstruction of my writing style. I got through two
paragraphs before I had to quit. They looked something like this:

The first sentence stands alone as a one-liner or joke and summarizes
what the column is about that particular week.

The second sentence usually expands on the first sentence, sometimes
grounding it in reality, but always with exaggerations. If I'm talking
about an anecdote from my life, I'll enter the setup at around this
point. If I'm talking about random crap, I'll insert a pop culture
joke at around this point. If can't think of any, poot humor is an
acceptable substitute. Prepare for inevitable numbered list that's
coming up in a few paragraphs. Remember that the third in the sequence
has to be a self-deprecating

At this point I figured I owed you more than that. Which probably
still isn't what I'm going to give you because I'm kind of a hack.
And, frankly, kind of a prick. I guess now's my chance to talk about
me, a subject I feel isn't breached nearly enough in the mass media.

First, let me assure you that everything I've ever written about is
all-too-real. My Thoughts teeters on the line between caricature and
absolute reality. Some stories are exaggerated, but I make these
instances painfully obvious. For example, the woman who imposed harsh
airport security rules on me last summer wasn't really The F***ing
Devil as I had noted. That was obviously an exaggeration. If anything,
she was only a minion from the Sixth Circle with the all the heretics.
I thrive on these exaggerations. Noticing the peculiarities of
everything and laughing at the hardships I sometimes have to endure
makes life so much more fun and me that much more awesome.

Under this banner, I don't really consider myself a legitimate writer.
I've written upward of three times as many news or feature stories for
this and other publications throughout the past four years of college.
Although I absolutely am honored and appreciate it when someone
compliments me on a column, I absolutely adore when someone tells me
they want me to die because of it. I've been told that my columns have
been analyzed, in quite a negative light, by an English professor.
I've been told that a girl in my class wrote a paper about how
terrible your column is and how you're not a real writer and how your
dandruff is seriously not even pathetic-cute anymore. I honestly don't
know what to say to people who assume Tim Landry, a person who's
written columns titled Baths vs. Showers, Babies are Overrated and
More like 'badvertising!' considers his work high class. In fact, if I
could insert sound effects into this column, I'd put a fart sound
right about here.

If you're the college professor I mentioned, I understand. Publish or
perish, right? Gotta get that tenure. Might as well attack a guy who
regularly uses Internet acronyms in his writing and talks about how
dorky he is. He is, after all, taking himself seriously... right? I
guess you'd know as you're the one with the Ph.D. in prepositions.
Zing!

I'd like to take this chance to add an extra by-line to my column.
Though I've written everything myself, usually from an angle I thought
only I understood, everything I've written has been based on life
experience. The fact that I'm surrounded by such amazing people in my
life is what makes my positive attitude and ability to write what I do
so affordable.

Thank you Andrew, Burt, Rodney and Zach for being the four funniest
people I know. Thank you for making me genuinely laugh and thank you
for making me a funnier person. You've all made strange parties
tolerable and nights in some of the most memorable I've ever had. I
truly honor our friendship based on this and multiple levels.

Thank you Mom, Dad, Megan, Josh, Celeste, Anna and Kara for being
some of the most loyal and vocal readers I have. Quite possibly the only
readers I have. Thank you Megan for saying That's not funny and thank
you Josh for saying Hell yeah that's funny when we all knew it wasn't.

Thank you editors Mandy and Dan for giving me the chance to write. I
originally applied to the Vermilion as a humor columnist, but they
laughed me out of the building. A few semesters later, they gave me a
chance. They have regretted it to this day.

Thank you Francesca Messore, whoever you are, for starting a Facebook
group dedicated to this column. Likewise, thank you to Rabbit Prejean
for starting the anti-Tim group. I LOL'D after receiving an invitation
to join. I am now an officer in said group.

Thank you, Jessa, for being the girl I love. Thank you for making me
feel like the funniest person alive every time we're together. Thank
you for enduring what I'm sure are constant reruns of anti-jokes and
childish observations. I never thought I'd be lucky enough to land
such a beautiful, compassionate and understanding piece of meat as
yourself.

And thank you, readers, for putting up with a farewell to something
that probably doesn't deserve this many column inches. But this column
has meant a lot to me as a voice to UL Lafayette and as an outlet for
whatever was on my mind. A gentleman at a party recently approached me
because he recognized me, I'm not making this up, from the drawing I
have at the top of this column. He told me that he loved my column so
much because he can relate to all the stupid things everyone thinks
but nobody thinks about. I'm proud to be able to relate to just one
reader. Let alone a campus full of potential readers who have stuck
with me throughout it all.

Thank you, everyone, for getting it.

©2005 Tim Landry