And I thought I had it bad...

Ah, the mixed blessings of graduating from college. Now I can start paying off all of those student loans I took on. Reap the consequences of all those signatures, the many minutes taken reading the very fine print and trying to understand all the legal jargon and having nightmares about being chased down by a demonic Uncle Sam because I couldn't pay them off... Anyway, I thought I had it pretty bad--about $17,000 owed to the federal government, plus about the same amount to my dad who helped me out. But that was because I hadn't come across a horror story to give me any perspective. A story that could shock me into realizing how lucky I was to have so little debt (comparatively speaking, of course) and more importantly, to know that I took it on myself.

As always, the Times has given me some perspective on mylife. From this week's magazine, written by a poor guy who graduated seven years ago:

I am currently $64,707 dollars in debt, none of which I actually borrowed. As best as I can figure, my mom first starting signing my name when I was 18. She took on at least five credit cards as well as about $50,000 in student loans. I thought my parents were paying for my college, but it turns out my mom would take out the loans every three months, under my name, for a couple thousand dollars each. Which was fine, except that once I graduated, my mom seemed to forget about the loans entirely. She never paid them back or alerted me of their existence so that I might have. They now amount to $58,607 because of the interest that accumulated during the seven years that they weren't being dealt with.

Damn. I'll shut up and quit complaining now.