Rusty's Diary, Vol. 6: We're LinkedIn Official (God Help Us All)

Well, well, well. Dive Bar has officially joined the corporate hellscape that is LinkedIn. Yes, you read that correctly. The same establishment where I once witnessed a customer try to pay their tab with a handful of arcade tokens now has a "professional presence" on the internet. They're posting about charity contributions and employee recognition like we're some sort of legitimate business venture instead of the beautiful disaster we actually are.

I watched them agonize over the company description for FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES.

"How do we say 'come drink cheap beer in our deliberately sketchy atmosphere' in professional speak?" Easy. You don't.

But here's the real kick in my metaphorical teeth: graduation season. All my college kids — MY KIDS — are abandoning ship faster than you can say "real job with benefits." The HPU crew at High Point, the Wake Forest kids at Winston.

Four years I've watched them stumble through these doors, stressed about organic chemistry and student loans, and now they're all putting on grown-up clothes and pretending they know how to use Excel.

Sure, we got them graduation t-shirts (currently on sale, because of course they are), and FINE, maybe I'm a little proud watching them walk across that stage. Maybe I even shed a tear behind my pinball machine. Maybe I'm also seething with jealousy because THEY get to leave and I'm stuck here forever, listening to some new batch of freshmen discover what a "pickleback" is.

Circle of life, my furry behind.

-R.B.