We were all in the bathroom when she said it. Each passive-aggressively vying for mirror time as we adjusted our matching neon green beanies and re-applied our Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers.

“Ha ha ha, Shannan … you are so funny! I think that’s why I’m so skinny! You make me laugh so much. Ha ha ha! Do you know laughing burns calories? That’s why I’m SO skinny!”

When making an important life-altering decision, I like to pretend that all of my options were trapped on a desert island, engaged in a Battle Royale of theoretical proportions. It’s a methodology that has been passed down in the Scarselletta clan for generations; it’s how my sister decided to go blonde, and how my mother chose which children to keep.

Frail, pristine Caitlin Richter, who probably still carries My Little Ponies in her Paul Frank lunchbox, maintained her post as the sole object of my concentrated pre-pubescent scorn until one fateful day in first grade music class. She was whispering so softly into her recorder that she could’ve been inhaling, while I was pounding a triangle against a snare drum with all the aggression of an overworked nanny pushed too far. Suddenly, my classmates stopped playing their instruments and watched in awe as a puddle grew from under her jellies to the edges of my light-ups. Then, with yogi-like tranquility, Caitlin Richter pulled off the type of scapegoat evasion that would inspire the likes of Spitzer:

“It’s too hot in here.”

A solid fourth of my Spice-Girls-Era diaries is filled with food porn: hot sessions with Kit Kat in the girl’s locker room, sexually frustrating make out binges with Bubble Tape and steamy afternoons spent spooning a large, sweaty bowl of hot chocolate. After I die, those three Jesus Loves Me diaries will survive me for years to come, leaving my offspring generations of discomfort, knowing that Great Great Great GranShan, the matriarch of their race of enormous gingers, was a checkout-lane-item fetishist.

You know them. You’ve seen them, talked to them, had the darkest corners of your lonely existence interrupted by the intrusive glare of their emanating love rays. You pass them in Ho Plaza, praying that their heavy-handed PDA is only the first staged scene of a sexual health demonstration. Their first language is couple talk, but they’re also fluent in condescension. They have little-to-no sarcasm perception, which turns out to be quite handy.

They are the human manifestation of Valentines Day, and you can’t help but hate them.

Little known fact: Cornellians receive two diplomas at graduation. The first can be proudly displayed in a Target frame your mom had engraved at the mall, congratulating you on your satisfactory performance in the fields of academia, P.E. and B.S. (English majors, holler back! No? Too early?). The second, we can tuck away in that drawer of folded panties that I assume all adults have — “Congratulations! You are now slightly less socially maladjusted than you were in high school.”

Maybe it was the gooey saliva and snot bubbling from every facial orifice. Maybe it was the way she precariously hung over her tiny mother’s shoulder. Or maybe it was the fact that she had less regard for social boundaries than a Risley resident, and had been staring at me, reaching at my face for the entire subway ride. Whatever the reason, I was not about to lose a staring contest to someone who had nil control over her bowels. This was a pride thing.

My nemesis was dangling by one leg now, her diaper crunching as she inched closer to me, held from a 5-foot death fall by her mother’s haphazard grip on her baby cankle. I wondered if I could — or even would — catch her in time.

Since the economy has gone down faster than Jenna Jameson at “Action!,” for many students, the meaning of “The Gap Year” has changed from the title of a potential khaki-zombie film about the year-long attempt of a few brave leather-clad heroes to stave off an epidemic of cable knit sweaters of various, yet still somehow generic muted hues — to the potential horrifying reality of 365 days spent finding a passion, a job, an income, and — dear God, no, anything but that — an understanding of “yourself.”

Nothing makes me feel more like a failed sexual predator than the interview process. I first discover this cute little business on Careernet, the Match.com of the desperate and jobless. Her description catches my eye with words like, “exciting,” “experienced,” and “willing to take any major” (you saucy minx, I know what that means). After exchanging a couple emails explicitly describing how my past experience has prepared me to fulfill her every need and each secret desire, she coyly holds off for a few days.

Do I call her? Did she forget about me? Am I not good enough? Once I begin to convince myself I never needed her in the first place, the cheeky dame offers to meet me somewhere — somewhere private.

“Hey, I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner on Saturday. We’ll eat at the Boatyard after we go bowling, and before we rent your favorite movie that we both know every word to. Then we can cuddle for hours and talk about our childhoods and our future plans, our insecurities and our wildest dreams. I can tell you that I got fat on Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, and we can spend all night driving around in hot pursuit of those delicious black and white striped nuggets of love. After discovering them in the dark corner of a 24-hour mom and pop store, we can park on an escarpment to watch the sunrise and laugh for hours about how no one is as cool as we are. Sound good? Alright, dude, see you at four. Imaginary high five!”