dontsaynothing.com

The Achilles heel of college students is most definitely money.  Or rather, it would be the lack there of.  Money is definitely a necessity, and yet, one still finds it to be the rarest of the college resources.  But there have been reports in which people attest to finding reserves of this rare resource.  And after much investigation, it seems that these store of money usually begin to appear soon after students go off to college.  These money mines are located in the student’s home and are often referred to as “parents.”  While these resources seem to be present from the very beginning of the student’s life, it is only after one truly experiences the feeling of being completely broke that one truly is able to attempt to tap into this seemingly endless resource.  Apparently, parents cannot supply an endless stream of money, which was a devastating blow when this discovery was made.  

One extra security measure that has been put in place to prevent the over-mining of money from the wallet is the University Bucks that almost every college offers.  Parents put money into an account for their students, and it suddenly becomes completely worthless outside a mile of the school.  While this is all fine and dandy for the parents, it kind of leaves the students high and dry.  

This injustice must be stopped.  There needs to be a law against making money worthless.

Probably one of the biggest lessons that a freshman needs to learn before even his second semester is how absolutely awful the campus book store is.  First let’s break down the name…Book-store.  So based on this it would seem that this is where one would go to purchase books for class.  And considering that this is the campus book store, one could also assume that this would guarantee the availability of all the books for all the classes.  This assumption, while justified, couldn’t be more wrong.  

Now, as a first semester freshmen, most students probably don’t know about all the pre-ordering possibilities offered through not only the campus bookstore, but also several online sources and the used bookstore down the street.  This information is withheld on purpose.  The bookstore actually enjoys watching new freshmen scramble for their books the day before school starts.  

And to make the game even more enjoyable for them, the employees at the bookstore play dumb every time a student asks them about some needed books.   Sometimes they don’t even bother to look up when asked questions, as they are probably just tying to finish their game of solitaire.  It also seems as if more information could be gathered about shipments by asking the books themselves rather than ask an employee.  

“Excuse me, do you know when the next shipment of you is coming in?”

Now, these books don’t actually give an answer, but at least they don’t lie either.  

Another great thing about the campus book store-and this is especially true of the smaller schools-is that since it is probably the only place that carries any kind of school merchandise, they really want to utilize that position.  Adding the name of the school to any kind of item at least doubles the price right then and there.  How the people who work at the bookstore are able to sleep at night knowing that they are basically just taking money from poor college students is a mystery.  One theory is that they don’t sleep, but because they are an elite group of money loving insomniacs that run on the smell of money.  Considering how much it costs to get just a simple sweatshirt, it would seem that these people could be energized for the rest of the day by the profits that they get from one such sweatshirt.  

The campus bookstore truly is a necessary evil… which is probably what makes them evil in the first place.  They know that students can’t survive on campus with out them.  And since it’s not enough to see the smiling faces of these poor college students who are already paying ridiculous tuition, more money can obviously be squeezed from either them or their parents.  And thus, the vicious cycle continues: Student gives bookstore money enough for two shirts, bookstore gives them back one.

Freshman Move-In Day: This day can be one of the most exciting, awkward, fun, scary, and possibly humiliating days of a young man’s life.  But how does one prepare for this milestone event?  What goes in to making a high school senior ready for his first steps as a college student?  The answer…boxes; the most crucial of all the items on the list for move-in day.  Not only are they the building block for the rest of the college packing, but anyone who undervalues their importance clearly has never helped a girl carry a car-load of junk up to the sixth floor of the biggest dorm on campus.  Needless to say, it’s not the most enjoyable experience.  

Now, with the university goods packed into hopefully no more than four boxes (any less, you probably forgot something; anymore, and the extras are going to remain packed for the entirety of the year), it’s time to take the long awaited journey to the campus of choice.  As the car pulls up in front of the dorm, feelings of excitement are quickly overwhelmed by awkwardness as the car is flooded by upperclassmen who, for some strange reason, volunteered to end their summer two days early to help the freshmen move-in.  The initial shock usually comes very close to knocking people off their feet; there is no way that people should be this nice with school this close to starting.  Anyway, this is the point where packing with no more than four boxes really comes in handy.  Not only does it speed the process along, but you don’t become the jerk that made these nice people make twenty trips to your car to empty it.  This also means that they will be less likely to mumble obscenities behind your back.  

The parents are probably going to remain with their child for the remainder of the day, probably mostly due to the mother’s severe case of separation anxiety, which is intensified if the child is her first-born.  And where the separation anxiety begins, humiliation begins.  Memories of the first day of every school year come flooding back, and this year there’s no coming back at 3:00 p.m.  Oddly enough, the mother, between spurts of tears, still has the power to inflict more embarrassment on her child.  The dreaded “go introduce yourself” comment quickly comes into play.  It’s understandable though; it’s a natural occurrence for a mother to push her child to new levels of embarrassment.  But simply by being present, the mother has helped along this meeting of new people much more than she intended…both students now have something in common and conversation will quickly move from dealing with embarrassing mothers to the new episode of LOST that was on the night before.  

Life as a college student is going to be sweet.  No more parents, no more annoying siblings, no more chores, and no more high school.  Who could possibly ask for anything more than that?  Oh wait, classes start in 2 days.