I don't know how to apply for a loan,

I can't decide whether to rent or own,

Oh the things I wish I had known,

When I left my parent's home.

 

In everything my teachers taught,

I have tried and tried but have not,

Found something I will use a lot.

 

I have a lot of learning left to do,

That doesn't concern Napoleon or Waterloo,

Many others feel this way too,

While they suffer through Algebra 2.

 

I don't know how to apply for a loan,

I can't decide whether to rent or own,

Oh the things I wish I had known,

When I left my parent's home.

 

I know all about Thomas Paine,

But Common Sense seems vain,

when the world around me lacks the same.

I can name the Supreme Court's nine,

But can't apply for that job that should be mine.

 

Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Ginsburg, Scalia,

Read this chapter on the war in Korea.

Sotomayor, Alito, Kagan, Kennedy,

Here comes the world and I'm not ready.

 

I don't know how to apply for a loan,

I can't decide whether to rent or own,

Oh the things I wish I had known,

When I left my parent's home.

 

The complaint that we are taught menial facts,

Has been beaten into the ground with an axe,

But what of that which matters in life?

Like settling down with a dog and a wife?

 

I don't know anything about bonds or stocks,

I don't know how to avoid contract locks,

I wouldn't know what to do,

If my car had a flat tire or two.

 

I don't know how to apply for a loan,

I can't decide whether to rent or own,

Oh the things I wish I had known,

When I left my parent's home.

 

The truth is, it grinds my gears,

That I spent the better part of thirteen years,

Reading Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth,

And the significance of Frankenstein's death.

 

I've been Mapping chemical reactions and theories,

But what comes next in life's series?

Things I am certainly not prepared for,

That should have been in the honors core.

 

I don't know how to apply for a loan,

I can't decide whether to rent or own,

Oh the things I wish I had known,

When I left my parent's home.