Zach Sanders

They’re here. Yes, snatching heads and eating money.

They are the invasion of the money snatchers. And their yellow hollowed orbs act as beacons and mask the terrible reality of their existence. They’ll suck the money out of you and leave your head light and empty like so many balloons. Sounds rather apocalyptic and eschatological, but in my exited state of frustration, I can’t help but getting a little carried away. Still, strip the sensation and you may find something close to the truth. And speaking of truth, I wish I had a pin. A pin that would pop the ideological bubbles as easy as popping those bothersome yellow balloons or maybe I mean Citi people, littered around campus today.

You may ask the me stuck in this writing, why I’m so bothered with free enterprise. This question has almost no relevance. It is the carnivalesque celebration of the event that annoys me. Why such fanfare for such an event. What are we celebrating? The carnival brings new things to our attention and provides an alternative to daily life.

But credit and money are daily life. It may not be a carnival, but the endless bags, the numerous signs, the billions and billions of balloons all point to the spectacular nature of the event. It is a shame that half, or probably more, of the lectures and events that actually relate to university learning do not get nearly the exposure. In my walks through the university, I find random posting for such events, but only on department boards and usually I find them late. But the “Paper or Plastic?” event was advertised so ubiquitously, that to miss it I would have had to avoid campus for two (three?) weeks. And what did I learn? About 10 facts I could have easily found on my own.

To give you an example of how ideology works in this case, the answer to “What is the first thing you should do before moving?” is “Notify your creditors.” I should hope my friends and family know before my creditors. The choice between paper and plastic becomes so modified and encompassed by Citi, that all answers exist within this realm and the real question becomes “Citi or Citi?” Next time such an amount of money and time are spent, I should hope the question would be, “Food or Tuition?”

Zach Sanders is a junior, English major