Non-Target is Paradise

You wake up Wednesday at 12:07 PM, violently hungover but spiritually at peace. No class today. Even if you did, it would just be your professor deriving the time value of money for the 47th time like it’s a religious experience. You roll over and check your phone: four Tinder notifications from girls you will never meet and three texts asking if you’re alive after last night. Apparently you threw a beer through someone’s window. You don’t remember this, which means it probably wasn’t your fault.

You spend the next three hours doomscrolling. Reels. Death clips. Conspiracy edits. Thirst traps algorithmically engineered to ruin your attention span. You can physically feel your brain smoothing out, your testosterone leaking into the mattress. You wouldn’t trade it for anything.

At 3:30 you finally peel yourself out of bed and put on clothes that could legally qualify as biohazards. Laundry is a problem for future you, who is presumably more mature and less hungover. You shuffle into the living room. Your roommate is locked in, grinding computer science homework like his bloodline depends on it. You haven’t had an assignment due in three weeks.

Breakfast is leftover chicken pasta and a glass of warm water. You turn on suits. For 42 minutes, you feel something—adrenaline, purpose, destiny. Someday, you tell yourself, you will be Harvey Specter. You will simply “be that guy.” You ignore the fact that you are currently eating pasta with a fork you found on the floor.

It’s 5 PM. You heroically submit your I-9 for your summer internship. It’s only two weeks late. Honestly, that’s on them for not following up harder. Besides, AI will probably replace you before you even get there. You reward yourself with a frozen Reese’s cup and a Coors Banquet. The first sip tastes like regret as a flashback hits: you yakking on your friend’s floor at 3AM. You nod. Good times.

7 PM. Showtime.

Another night of elite conversation with Chad, Emma, Jake, Anna, and Tim about how “brutal” communications classes are. They laugh. You laugh. Deep down, you know you are better than them. You have Excel. They have vibes.

You stumble into the bathroom, beer in hand, and turn on the shower. This is your moment. You shave. You do your hair. You apply cologne like you're closing a deal. For the first time all day, you smile. Tonight, your options are limitless: a freshman who just discovered alcohol or a coked out sorority girl.

You’re about to leave when your roommate looks up from his code.

“Hey man… can you maybe chill a bit tonight? Last night was kind of a lot.”

“Of course,” you say.

You lie. You plan on yakking on yourself in bed.

You step into the elevator. A text from your mom comes in with a baby photo. “Hope you’re doing well honey!” For a brief moment, you feel something. Disappointment. Not hers—yours. You’ve become a semi-functional degenerate with a finance major and a declining moral compass. Younger you wouldn’t be proud.

You respond instantly: “Thanks Mom! Miss you a lot!”

Back to neutral.

You walk out onto the street. The comm majors are already blacked out. You smile. Who would ever want to go to an Ivy? This is the peak experience. You shotgun a beer. Two shots. Something in a plastic cup that legally shouldn’t exist. 

You enter a flow state.

Time dissolves.

The first yak of the night hits. You make it to the bathroom—veteran move. You look up into the mirror at your reflection: bloodshot eyes, yak-stained shirt, a man on the brink of greatness or complete collapse.

You smile.

Non-target is paradise.