Walking through the Student Union again was a warm welcome considering that the holidays weren't, but one annoyance I didn't miss were the credit card companies and their insulting barrage of gimmick ploys, lassoing anyone with an inept ability to underst and what they're doing, or much less care. Meandering through the main floor, I was not deprived of the sight of students, or rather, clueless cattle, in long adolescent processions of a voluntary slaughterhouse waiting impatiently to sign their name at t he chopping blocks, excuse me - application tables.
Making the unconscious mistake of traveling too close to one of the chopping blocks, I heard this poignantly stabbing voice call out to me, "Fill out an application, and we'll give you a free T-shirt, sir." (The "sir" part is my addition.)
"Sure," I tell her directly. "That will be $20 an hour."
"Excuse me?" the head executioner replies.
"To advertise your product on my body will cost you $20 an hour," I repeat. Then there's this baffling period of silence for her and one of caged hostility for me, for her and for the sacrificial sirloin sitting at the block with a mouth full of M&Ms obl ivious to what just occurred, signing his name on the dotted line.
"Thanks for the T-shirt!" he yelps out.
"Congratulations," I tell him. "You've just been branded."
Arguably, however, my biggest mouth-gaping wonder isn't that these cattle executioners are in the Student Union herding up more clueless cattle for their farms, but that so many students are so gullible to not just believe but to unquestioningly trust the se people shoving Frisbees in their hands without so much as even a whimper (which is what happens, usually, after you receive the first bill). Occasionally, I admit, I've heard a couple of veals ask, "What if we're not here during the summer? How do you bill us then?" In which case, from this point, the executioner was more than willing to offer a quick angst-free response to alleviate any such troubling matters. Then I swear I saw a furtive little smirk at the corner of the executioner's mouth, but hurr iedly waned before the veals could see it.
Furthermore, what baffles me most, is that what they want you to believe they're selling you is a sense of security, independence and sovereignty when becoming a proud new member of their credit card; moreover, given the incessantly negative media, this i sn't a hard task for the companies to accomplish. The usually beseeching cries from them are, "What if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere?" or "Wouldn't you like to get the new pair of shoes now, instead of later?" and finally, the real clinche r for new college students, "Wouldn't you like to be independent from your parents?"
Sadly, however, most students don't even need to hear this because they've come prepared, determined and, unfortunately, uninformed.
The uninformed truth about credit cards is that they don't provide any independence from anything: they only provide a dependence. Depending on what type of card you get, most of them have the revolving debt, which is to say that you make a conveniently low payment each month and that's it. What most students fail to understand is that they charge you interest every month for having this revolving debt. Thus, the "free T-shirt" is a good investment for them since it's paid off by the interest of one bill alone and it's free advertising.
Another time I had an unfortunate conversation with one of these executioners, she said to me, "You need to establish a credit line."
"Why?" I asked, "does an 18-year-old need a credit line?"
"Because it's important in this day and age. Everyone has, or should have, a credit line," she stated firmly.
At this point, I was on the verge of throwing her that old cliche about if everyone jumped off of the bridge, would she follow, but instead I asked, "By any chance, do you support Rush Limbaugh?"
"What?" she asked, sounding confused.
"Nevermind," I tell her, and walk off.
Daniel Martin is a creative writing sophomore.
