Am I buying books? Because it feels like I'm dying.
10/1/2009
By Solomon Gustavo
The beginning of a new semester brings a mix of many emotions – anticipation and excitement, and the feeling of being robbed when buying books.
We’ve all been there before: Walking around the bookstore, cautiously picking up over-priced books, feeling nostalgic of simpler times, feelings like fleeing to a beach in Jamaica and living off the water off the beach and coconuts that crack open when they fall from trees.
When I head into that store, I break out into sweats. I mutter things under my breath like, “I hate you,” or make random primal grunts every time I pick up a book.
And as much of a necessity each book ends up being, I stand in front of the Math section somehow justifying my biannual theory that sharing a book with someone will somehow actually work.
People do it, but admit it, you hate having to snatch that book from the person you’re partnered with, hindering how much you can study. There is always some mix up, and saving the money never seems worth it in the end.
But that feeling when the innocent messenger at the counter tells you the price of your literature for the semester would warrant doing anything to avoid it, if it is avoidable at all.
The person at the counter might as well not say anything when tallying up the books. Instead, that person should just punch through my back and grab one of my kidneys. I can live with one, right? I would rather do that than the arm and leg they take for my books.
I don’t have a mortgage, but I feel like I should be refinancing something every time I print off my schedule and head to the bookstore.
(Whatever I’m talking about has to be horrible if I am making a financial joke, because I have no idea what I am talking about, economically speaking.)
It would make things easier if the people working in the bookstore that help pick out your books when you hand them your schedule would dress as evil beings that students can vent at, a symbol to release any tension over the trip to the bookstore.
Psychologically, how much nicer would it be if you could yell at the person gathering your books dressed in a devil costume, or with a George W. Bush mask?
That kind of culture would make a trip to the bookstore more of an event, and less of a depression igniter.
I can dream, can’t I? What else do we have after being ripped off so mercilessly every semester? Why are those books so expensive to begin with?
Stay tuned for an article in The Stinger uncovering just that. (You like that teaser? I thought so.)
We’ve all been there before: Walking around the bookstore, cautiously picking up over-priced books, feeling nostalgic of simpler times, feelings like fleeing to a beach in Jamaica and living off the water off the beach and coconuts that crack open when they fall from trees.
When I head into that store, I break out into sweats. I mutter things under my breath like, “I hate you,” or make random primal grunts every time I pick up a book.
And as much of a necessity each book ends up being, I stand in front of the Math section somehow justifying my biannual theory that sharing a book with someone will somehow actually work.
People do it, but admit it, you hate having to snatch that book from the person you’re partnered with, hindering how much you can study. There is always some mix up, and saving the money never seems worth it in the end.
But that feeling when the innocent messenger at the counter tells you the price of your literature for the semester would warrant doing anything to avoid it, if it is avoidable at all.
The person at the counter might as well not say anything when tallying up the books. Instead, that person should just punch through my back and grab one of my kidneys. I can live with one, right? I would rather do that than the arm and leg they take for my books.
I don’t have a mortgage, but I feel like I should be refinancing something every time I print off my schedule and head to the bookstore.
(Whatever I’m talking about has to be horrible if I am making a financial joke, because I have no idea what I am talking about, economically speaking.)
It would make things easier if the people working in the bookstore that help pick out your books when you hand them your schedule would dress as evil beings that students can vent at, a symbol to release any tension over the trip to the bookstore.
Psychologically, how much nicer would it be if you could yell at the person gathering your books dressed in a devil costume, or with a George W. Bush mask?
That kind of culture would make a trip to the bookstore more of an event, and less of a depression igniter.
I can dream, can’t I? What else do we have after being ripped off so mercilessly every semester? Why are those books so expensive to begin with?
Stay tuned for an article in The Stinger uncovering just that. (You like that teaser? I thought so.)