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.”

The music room transformed into a Baptist Church in July — kids tore off their Starter jackets, falling to the ground with their hands in the air, feeling the strong palm of heat-induced fatigue on their foreheads. A line formed at the door to drink water or even polar bear run — anything to prevent the pending kid-pee flooding of the music room.

The heat was irrelevant; the excuse was nonsensical. And yet, everybody bought it.

This fall, it seemed like the whole world was turning into Caitlin Richters, wandering around with urine-streaked pants of unemployment, pointing their fingers and shaking their fists at the invisible tormenter of bladders: the economy. From shitty mortgages to downsized Happy Meal toys, it seemed the economy could be blamed for almost everything.

“Bad Economy! You potty outside! Not on the rug!” “No, Economy, don’t hump strangers’ legs! I should’ve had your GM stock cut off in the ’90s.” “Who ate the last piece of cake? Econommyyyy.”

But I was confident that we Cornellians were above the reach of this bad economy. I was living the Ivy League Dream; I knew your first binge on 86 percent fat chocolate milk practically guaranteed you a job. Even if we messed up a little, let out even a little pee droplet, our degrees had the absorbency of extra heavy Depends. Holding up a B.A. from Cornell at a job fair should inspire the same Thunderdome competition for your services as holding up a roofie in a Cougar Bar. Right? Right!?

But then one morning over spring break, I woke up in a warm — wait, lukewarm — actually, kind of cold — oh, my God. I wet the bed. My heart melted as friends who worked at ad agencies, publishing companies, even ESPN returned my calls, mumbling “hiring freeze.” Look, ESPN, I know you’re owned by Disney. I know Walt Disney is actually still alive, paying God billions monthly to rent out the bodies of other people. Sell the “It’s a Small World” ride and hire me. I’m marginally less annoying.

OK, so maybe finding a job’s out of the question. But then, there’s always grad school, right? Wrong. Children, gather round whilst I drop knowledge about the grad school cock block:

Job: “I love you, but I’m looking for someone with more knowledge.”

Grad school: “You seem like a great girl, but I just need someone with more experience.” If I knew how to use it in a sentence, I might call that a catch-22.

So, finally, I’m facing the facts. The first step towards recovery is admitting that you have the problem. So — deep breath — here it goes.

My name is Shannan Scarselletta, and I’m unemployed.

I was a good kid, hard-working. Always offering discounts at my lemonade stand for first-time buyers, and limiting my bubble-blowing breaks during car washes. I was generous with my business, even employing the kid who ate lipstick to mow one lawn a week with hand clippers. I had friends. I had a life. I had a piggy bank.

But then, in high school, everything changed when I got my first taste of unemployment. I remember it perfectly: It was summer, and I was hanging out with some local band guys — you know, the kind whose “tour bus” is a spray painted church van with one 40-mph-or-less tire salvaged cool by a solitary plastic spinner. It just seemed so cool, so creative, so skinny-jeaned and angst-ridden — this unemployment business. After my first “experience,” I was hooked. I spent months reveling in my unemployment; in my depths I’d reach as far as to feed my unemployment habit with volunteer work. And I’m ashamed.

There were moments of hope, spans when I’d break free of my habit for months at a time. But inevitably, after hearing one too many variations of “Do my fat arms make my arms look fat?,” I’d hang up my ice cream scoop, burn my Ann Taylor Loft Sales Associate Manual and leave my careers of retail association and American-obesity-enabling behind.

But then I heard of something meant to slowly ween you off your unemployment while still allowing small doses of the lazy Sundays I so craved. There was work involved, but it was fake work, and you could easily distract yourself from it by going to parties and soaking up all the skinny jeans and angst you could fit into a sorority. And once you completed the four-year program, you were practically guaranteed to be free of unemployment for life.

I’m nearing the end of that program, but my friends have become worried about a relapse. They’ve approached me with evidence: grad school applications found in my closet; printouts of plane tickets to Budapest discovered under my bed; a B.A. in philosophy; the beginnings of a screenplay hidden between my cocaine stashes. They’ve referred me to “friends who can help”: Cornell alumni who claim to have once gone through similar struggles; smiling, devastatingly-optimistic career services mentors; even, Heaven help me, Yahoo Hot Jobs.

But, maybe it’s not me. No, it can’t be my fault. I’ve always succeeded. It has to be something else. Something I can’t control. Who farted? The economy did.

From my second grade math teacher to that huge girl on St. Francis’ basketball team, I’ve always been able to identify who’s trying to hold me back. With a concrete opponent, you can always rise to the challenge, or kick them hard in the cooch and bring them down to your level. But the economy … it’s … it’s everywhere. The economy makes the 6’9” St. Francis center seem like that seven-year old I steal candy from at church. Suddenly, there’s no height to which I can rise nor cooch to which I can kick. I feel like I’m throwing punches in a room filled with primordial dwarves or slide tackling in a room filled with Star Wars desert hovercrafts.

But it’s important to remember that we’re not alone in our struggles. We’re not the first, nor are we the last class to leave Cornell disenchanted with the Ivy League Dream. Our careers aren’t over; we’re not one of the thousands of aging Americans coming home to families dependent upon us for food with nothing but a story about layoffs and budget cuts. We’re just on pause, and we have a perfect scapegoat for putting the real world on hold for a while. So I propose we all calm down for the next two months — enjoy the fact that we all have to fart and the elevator already smells like sulfur.

(Let it go.)