Summer is a season for students to escape. Some students might flee from the classroom for three months of illiterate musings, while others register for a few classes to distract themselves from the perils of idleness.

These two paths appear contradictory, but does picking one instead of the other make “all the difference,” as Robert Frost might say? No, because summer is a time to cast aside the chill of winter, the cabin fever of the College Park campus and the monotony of academia. Students use summer, like Pamela Anderson used her breast augmentation, to escape the realities of an imperfect existence.

Students are bombarded with enticements to escape the rigors of normal life. Hollywood targets the college-aged audience with cultural masterpieces, such as Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Putting “Secret Agent” on a business card has a little more pizzazz than “Assistant Staff Accountant” for the sprouting workforce of employment-starved college graduates. Also, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are ridiculously hot, so bring a handkerchief in case you … sweat … while enjoying your viewing experience.

Everybody will want to vicariously live the fiction of having an exciting career, an arousing spouse and big guns. One could imagine a College Park student re-evaluating his life in the context of the film and saying to his girlfriend, “If I had majored in ballistics, you might have been hot.”

If you are in a relationship and a sucker for all things ethical, do not despair! Lusting after Brad or Angelina while in a theater is a socially acceptable alternative to cheating on your significant other.

Movies are a convenient alternative to real life for two hours. Travel, however, redeems the spirit of mankind in a more direct way: Going to Mardi Gras and exchanging beads for a cheap thrill is more of an escape than watching some other caveman score this action on your behalf via a Girls Gone Wild video.

These three months are aptly dubbed “summer vacation,” no matter your plans. The escape of vacation is implicit in the idea of summer, even for those toiling at work or in class.

I had never understood until now why the disappearance of Natalee Halloway in Aruba captivated members of the media. But for a moment, pretend you are Anne L. Retentive, a reporter for Boring Times, and your boss tells you to pick between going on assignment for an inner city homicide or to a missing person’s case on the tropical resort island of Aruba. A trip to Aruba on company pay is the perfect escape from actual work — most people are happy if they can make it as far as Ocean City. Whether you are Anne L. or not, travel is to summer what Ex-Lax is to constipation: relief.

Summer is also the season for companionship. The interminable series of summer weddings best symbolize new life with the one you love. Few things are as heart-warming as sharing the pains (and joys, sure) of life with another. A companion provides shelter from the storm, which usually entails using sweet verbal consolations or base physical desires to salvage the curse of an eight-hour day. That kind of escapism is longed for by many.

The opposite was true in May when Jennifer Wilbanks faked her own kidnapping to escape her impending marriage.

“I was simply running away from myself and certain fears controlling my life,” she said in a statement issued May 5. Perhaps if she had been privy to the forthcoming Mr. & Mrs. Smith, she would have clearly understood that an assassination attempt on her fiancé is the key to marital bliss.

A few months are just what the doctor ordered for the ailing routines of the human machine. This summer’s movies, travel and friendship are some of the ways we “forget about life for a while,” as Billy Joel expressed in his song “Piano Man.” Thankfully, summer fun is marketed to fill what’s lacking in our lives. Don’t feel bad — the universal thread tying mankind is our urge to escape imperfection. Ah, summer, let us be true.

Joe Dowgiallo is a senior English major. He can be reached at jdowg@umd.edu.