So Long Sallie Mae, You Bloodsucking Whore

That's right, as of yesterday, my student loans are finally paid off!

Thank you, thank you. I am so honored. Thanks to my loan administrator, Sallie Mae Corp., for always being there. And I mean always. We've had our ups and downs, but I can honestly say I'm leaving this relationship with far fewer hard feelings than I had expected. Never mind that it was a 10 year loan and I graduated 11 years ago and I technically still had a year's worth of payments to make before I was done. I don't understand the math, but I trust that everything was on the up and up.

I also want to thank my parents, for having saved nothing for my college education. Trust fund babies are so overrated, as are kids whose parents pay for their schooling. What do these people know about struggle, sacrifice, and furnishing your apartment with items found on the street? Particularly, I'd like to thank Dad, who once seriously implied that tuition could not amount to much more than a couple of hundred dollars a semester. Even though I chose a public school, you missed the mark by a thousand or two, not including the little things like food, board and books. Oh the blissful ignorance of the divorced, long-distance father. Adorable! Remember that time, during freshman year, when I called desperate for some money to get food? You suggested I go to 7-11, cook a burrito in the microwave, and eat it right there without paying for it. "What are they going to do to you?" You asked. I demurred, and lived another day on butter and brown sugar sneaked from my roommate's refrigerator. And I'm stronger for it.

Next, I'd like to thank the University of California at Berkeley. You took pity on a pauper like me, gave me the best education money can buy at a very affordable price, and taught me that Stanford is for Dan Quayle fans. So what if you did nothing to help me find a job, or prepare me for the fact that I would have to toil as a secretary before I got anywhere anyway? So what if, on several occasions, I was tempted to ask you for my money back? Now that our debt sheet is cleared, I think of you fondly.

Thanks, too, to the editor who assigned me that article about a new charitable thingymajig. Yes, at times it felt the piece was truly a labor of disinterest, and the rewrites were hair-pullingly, computer screen-hittingly frustrating. But with the paycheck it provided I was able to do something, if not truly altruistic, at least beneficial to me: give a big fuck you to Ms. Mae.

And of course, I can't forget to mention my starter magazine jobs. You know who you are. Thank you for keeping me out of journalism school, and away from additional outrageous debt. Particularly FP - I had no idea that two years working under a bitchy tyrant at an understaffed publication would be equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars blown on a J-degree at Columbia or Northwestern, but it was.

Finally, I would like to share this honor with my husband, the wonderful Herr Guitar. When we wed, I gained much more than a partner, much more than a few All Clad pans and a Pyrex set... I gained another student loan payment. Thanks to you, darling, I can look forward to the triumph of having helped to pay off another student loan - in about 18 years or so. I can't wait.