2008 Woodie Awards
Thoughtless Banter
Skin Sweat Does Not Make a Good Sound
John Bellone
Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: Opinion
When I walk into my
room it is the first thing
that my eyes fixate on. The
square box roughly four
inches tall by two inches
wide, with one circular
knob and a rocker switch.
The knob has a word that I
thought I understood as
being the answer to all of
my problems, but unfortu-
nately, when the dial is
turned and the rocker
switch is pressed to the
"ON" position there is no
such luck. The box is re-
cessed out of the wall and
even has a border around it
highlighting its sexy fea-
tures. But it's there merely
as a tease, because when I
turn the damn thermostat
on I don't feel any cold air
rushing out of the vent right
above my bed.
It is a fun feeling walk-
ing into almost all of the
buildings on campus and
feeling the touch of a prop-
erly regulated building tem-
perature system. This of
course made me wonder
why the residence hall that
I pay to live in does not feel
the same caress from the
university. The university,
to me, is like the father that
is feeding his star baseball
player son well, but leaving
the son that wears thick-
rimmed glasses carrying a
copy of the "Streetwise
Guide to Quantum Physics"
the table scraps.
When you are a resident
at this university - or any
college for that matter - you
represent a tenant in the
system paying for room and
board. Of course, because
technically this is not a real
apartment and they are not
real landlords we have no-
body that we can actively
complain to when some-
thing goes wrong. But when
you do so it generally either
gets thrown on top of the
pile of the rest of the com-
plaints, shifted over to an-
other person that you
should speak to, or simply
discarded.
I can deal with eating
the same food every day,
hearing the distant voices of
someone in the next room
room it is the first thing
that my eyes fixate on. The
square box roughly four
inches tall by two inches
wide, with one circular
knob and a rocker switch.
The knob has a word that I
thought I understood as
being the answer to all of
my problems, but unfortu-
nately, when the dial is
turned and the rocker
switch is pressed to the
"ON" position there is no
such luck. The box is re-
cessed out of the wall and
even has a border around it
highlighting its sexy fea-
tures. But it's there merely
as a tease, because when I
turn the damn thermostat
on I don't feel any cold air
rushing out of the vent right
above my bed.
It is a fun feeling walk-
ing into almost all of the
buildings on campus and
feeling the touch of a prop-
erly regulated building tem-
perature system. This of
course made me wonder
why the residence hall that
I pay to live in does not feel
the same caress from the
university. The university,
to me, is like the father that
is feeding his star baseball
player son well, but leaving
the son that wears thick-
rimmed glasses carrying a
copy of the "Streetwise
Guide to Quantum Physics"
the table scraps.
When you are a resident
at this university - or any
college for that matter - you
represent a tenant in the
system paying for room and
board. Of course, because
technically this is not a real
apartment and they are not
real landlords we have no-
body that we can actively
complain to when some-
thing goes wrong. But when
you do so it generally either
gets thrown on top of the
pile of the rest of the com-
plaints, shifted over to an-
other person that you
should speak to, or simply
discarded.
I can deal with eating
the same food every day,
hearing the distant voices of
someone in the next room
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