Trying to write this last damn column has been like wrestling a bear — I just can’t make progress. The last column is supposed to be funny and poignant: “at Cornell I learned” and “I’ll always treasure.” But dammit, wow, how do we boil down six years of anything into 850 words? So after work on Sunday, I ran home, found a bottle of wine and hunted for a corkscrew. The eighth room I checked had one sitting next to a sleeping guy (at 3 p.m). I ran across the hall, asked my friends why the sleeping kid smelled like urine and opened my bottle. But PeeBoy broke the opener, and all I did was pound the screw into my bottle. Nuts. So now I’m sitting here with a pen in my bottle, trying to spill the wine into my glass. See the parallel? So if I write one sentence with each swig, maybe we’ll get through this alive. No promises.

My friends and I realized that everything we learned at Cornell, we learned behind the counter at Libe Café. Though there was the time I got hit by a car, and the time I almost got hit by a car, there are no morals there (but thanks to the Rockledge guy who pushed me out of the way back in 2001!).

There was the summer of Redbud Woods, when we fought like tigers to prevent an obsolete parking lot from destroying a piece of campus, but Cornell just decided to rescind the free bus passes that we won. No morals here either.

If I walk into the Temple of Doom (Libe Café), all the answers seem to gravitate towards me like freshmen to Keystone. I learned that status doesn’t equal intelligence or kindness: like clockwork, a prominent Arts and Sciences dean orders a medium skim latte. In my tenure, he’s never said please, thank you or even hi. But two months ago, he spilled his drink on the counter. We saw him clean off his own hands with nine or 10 napkins, and then pile his soiled napkins on his spill. He walked out, left his pile of garbage on the counter, and kept up the image of prestige and respect. He’s not alone.

I learned that we’re screwed if America’s future leaders are at Cornell. Most of our tea drinkers can’t distinguish garbage cans from counters. And recycling is still confusing to dozens of students, staff and faculty everyday. Plastic bottles go ... where?

Being forced to work 25 hours a week for six years, I learned that Financial Aid’s yearly “We Give CASH!” ads are pretty shallow. I’m walking away with over $140,000 in debt, and want to give one last thanks to the Mother Theresas in Financial Aid who didn’t believe that parents could be abusive and neglectful. Financial Aid has saddled me with debt I can’t repay for decades. I will never give money to Cornell, and never appreciated any of Day Hall’s million-dollar excuses for raising tuition.

Through tens of thousands of customers, I learned basic human decency is lacking across all groups. But, the more expensive your clothes, I have seen, the less capable you are of opening your own tea bags, reading our hours of operation or cleaning up your own mess. I want to give a shout out to the Savages — you know who you are — that stalk Olin Café like pirates. Always ready to scream “skim!” as if their lives depended on it, and never willing to put down their cell phones for a moment to say “hello” or “please,” the Savages are my antiheros. I’m thrilled to never again ask someone if s/he wants whipped cream on a smoothie. Nunca mas!

While you were agonizing over your Comm paper, we made nicknames for you. Moby Dick topped the scales at 260, and never forgot to shout, “skim and whipped cream!” after she demanded her white hot chocolate. Zoo Animal can’t stand still under her furs, pelts and hair and only eats water. Babyface has a tiny face — it is like a cabbage patch head atop a 6’ body. Weird. And dozens of others were named by the Rockstars at Olin for their behavior, for their attitude, for their sense of entitlement. Though plentiful signage indicates we, in fact, close at 10 p.m., there was never a shortage of students at 10:30 who came in, asked for a drink and demanded to know the time after we pointed to the large “Close” sign. They huffed, stomped and felt denied. Sorry, but we have to study, too.

Then there’s my HeroGirl. After watching her throw out a perfectly clean and functional plastic top and grab another, we asked her if she thought her actions were wasteful. She was insulted that the Help would question the Entitled. My favorite girl shouted at me, “the difference is you work here and I go to school here!” I learned about classy girls with pearls.

Behind the counter, we did homework between smoothies. We came in late, got there early and went to class with huge chocolate stains on our shirts. We’ve been giving you decaf during prelims for six years. Kidding. We don’t know the difference between skim and whole milk, and neither do you. Or do you?

Maybe there’s a moral … no, there isn’t a single moral in six years of anything. There’s only us, all of us, around this big campfire. With too damn much ease, people in America like to pretend they don’t need to rely on anyone, or be bothered by what other people need. We don’t sign anti-mine treaties, we ignore the planet and occupy Iraq, we refuse the Kyoto Protocol, etc. This kind of arrogance isn’t just Bush’s, it’s in us as well. That’s one thing I learned. Everyone here is privileged, and most of us did nothing but swim toward the Silver Egg to deserve it. The people most likely to care about others, and just about driving a big car, were the ones for whom simple human decency was custom. Nice people, who always acted nice, weren’t the ones who said we should keep bombing Iraq until “we win.” Nice weren’t the ones demanding more for themselves or refusing to recycle any of the six water bottles she drank tonight.

Maybe here’s the big moral: We spend lots of time trying to map our futures, cut corners and just win. Before our time comes, can work for ourselves or work for something more important than ourselves. We can be nice, and smart, and be less wasteful, or we can be mean, dumb and act like savages because we can afford it, and think we deserve it.

We shouldn’t look to people in ugly rented gowns for advice. Nonetheless, please reuse your cups, tip your servers and think through the bullshit. The truth is never deep below the surface. There are some horribly violent things going on right now. The most political thing we can do is be silent.

If you see me, or find out what Pee Boy did to the corkscrew, don’t say hi. I’ve moved on. But if you’ve got a working corkscrew, I’d love to share a drink.

Jeff Purcell is a graduate student in Africana Studies. He can be reached at jlp56@cornell.edu. Brutal Honesty appeared Mondays.