5 Years

500 dollars. What a scam!

You know, that money could go to a much better cause. Do you know how many animals’ lives you could save with that sort of funds? Better yet, do you know how many cute clothes I could find at the mall?

Textbooks – a student’s worst nightmare. As if tuition isn’t bad enough, the education market has to add a beautiful new picture to the cover of some lame book every year, just to make us have to pay $100 for a new one. Like I care what is on the cover, or who the new introduction is from. If the choice was left to us, we’d probably be reading textbooks from 1985. How much could really have changed in the last 20 years? Really!

And so commences my usual day as a junior in college. Spring term started yesterday for San Diego State and today is the glorious day that the bookstore makes hundreds of dollars off my already empty wallet. With a heavy sigh, I pick myself up from my light blue swiveling computer chair, stroll across the tacky blue-gray carpet that only a school dorm could possibly consider using, and make my way towards the door. I’ve yet to figure out why, but the handle makes a loud click every time I push it down. Its like, “Hello world, I’m leaving my room now! Just wanted to make sure everyone knows I’m going somewhere!” I heave open the brown door and permit my feet to take their sweet time walking down the hall.

The wall isn’t much better than the carpet. It’s some sort of off tan color with a reptile skin texture. The worst part is if you speak louder than a library voice, or are late for class and try to run down the hall, the rest of your floor knows exactly what you are doing due to the loud echo from these drab walls. I stop just before the center of the floor, turn to the left and tap on one of the doors. Brenda opens her door, purse already slung on her shoulder.

“Let’s go make our wallets cry,” I say.

To the elevator we go, my finger lightly striking the number 1. With a slight jolt of the enclosure, my adventure begins.

(to be continued...)