Babies are amazing. Besides their innate cuteness and slightly useful function as perpetuators of our race, they serve humanity in an essential capacity: as boredom alarms.

At the first hint of boring behavior of any sort, these mobile sirens wail and screech at volumes that pierce the ears and wound the soul.

Not only that, but a baby's cry is a call to action, a message from those not yet beaten into submission by societal norms, saying "I'm bored as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Yet, so often we misinterpret these wails as meaning "I'm hungry" or "I peed my diaper."

Think about it; when was the last time you heard a baby loudly crying? New parents aside, I'm betting it was at a graduation ceremony. And at what point during the ceremony did you hear a baby crying? Throughout the whole thing, wasn't it?

Inspired by the babies, I'm going to take up their call: WAHHHHHAA WAHHHHH! Translation: Graduation ceremonies are boring, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

(Until next year, at least.)

Speaking from a deep reservoir of experience and from the vast fount of knowledge accumulated during countless hours of research that definitely did not consist of 10 minutes of Google research and 13 hours of video game playing, I can scientifically conclude the boredom factor of these ceremonies is greater than 16 on a one to 10 scale.

Also uncovered during my research was the fact that sarcasm doesn't translate well in print unless it employs great hyperbole. Those last two paragraphs are definitely not related.

Getting back to the point, my experience indicates that the level of boredom can be linearly charted depending on how far along the "life path" one is. Let me explain.

I don't remember too much about it, but graduation from pre-school only brings back the warm fuzzies.

We put on animal costumes and paraded around, then sang songs and ate cupcakes. There might have been unicorn rides too, but I might be confusing that with a dream.

Graduation from elementary school marked the beginning of the downward spiral. While every class (kindergarten through 6th) at my school sang happy songs or performed a merry skit, the general tone was more formal and serious.

Called "Moving up Night," the ceremony marked our transition from stationary prisoners chained to a desk, to the nomadic wanderers of junior high and high school. Aptly, this meant sitting through the entire ceremony on the stage, behind all of the performers, meaning none of us could really watch the proceedings or leave for the bathroom. Or go quiet our baby sister, who was crying.

High school graduations mark a transition, but it's not the one you'll hear discussed in almost every graduation speech ever given. It's the transition from moderately enjoyable ceremonies to painful exercises in universal frustration.

The farce begins with the processional, an infuriatingly slow walk through the crowd up to the stage. Parents love this part because it's the only time their kid has no choice about posing for a picture in those awful robes.

Six hours later, the first speakers step to the podium. Usually this consists of the top brass from the school. I'd criticize this too, but for the life of me I can't recall a single word said during one of these speeches.

The salutatorian speech is standard issue, "Hey we're graduating, it's been a great ride, but we've changed, grown as people and are too old to stick around." Fill that out with a few hundred additional words and you have every salutatorian speech ever written.

Guest speakers are a mixed bag, their speeches usually advice pieces punctuated with a humorous anecdote or two, and several analogies which nobody younger than 40 understands.

Then we have the awards (i.e. cash money and scholarships) and the diplomas. This takes forever, and is great only for the five or six kids racking in the dough. For everyone else, well, dinner's on them.

And then we have the valedictorian's speech. Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that these are the worst. Filled with hope for the future and promises that this class can and will change the world, these speeches leave the crowd wet with tears. Especially the babies.

Don't get me wrong. These speeches are usually quite good and inspirational, but by this point, your butt's numb from the uncomfortable seats, the sun is launching scud missiles on your back and every boredom alarm in the crowd is kicking into red alert.

After all of that, generally there's a mingling period where graduates and audience members mingle. This is when people confuse their relief at the ceremony's conclusion with enjoyment of the ceremony itself.

And then there's college. This ceremony is actually listed in Webster's Dictionary as a synonym for "useless."

The speeches are the same, but use bigger words. Monetary awards are mere pipe dreams, replaced instead with bills for student loans and "fire hose nozzle replacement charges." And rather than knowing most of your fellow graduates, you're forced to sit through as they read the names of 1,000 strangers.

I don't know how it began or where things went wrong, but I do have a solution: cancel all graduation ceremonies in their current forms and let me plan them. I guarantee a transition and new beginning that everyone will remember.

If not for me, then do it for the babies.