Bought and Paid For

The check is in the mail.

Almost exactly a quarter of a century after I first set foot on a college campus, I no longer have any student loans. I am not sure how to react to this milestone. I will likely write checks to shadowy quasi-governmental agencies for months out of sheer habit. I hope I remember to tear them up before mailing them off.

I was never sure what would happen if I stopped paying them. What could they do? Repossess my education? Stick a vacuum up to my ear and suck out all the knowledge, leaving me to spend the rest of my days watching reality television and writing speeches for Sarah Palin?

I'd have had to take it on the lam - a mendicant scholar, will construct persuasive arguments for food.

But now I no longer need to worry about that. My brain is fully paid off. The neuro-repo-men need not trouble themselves on my account.

Time to go back to school, I say.