- STEALING LAUNDRY: Pretty much everyone on campus, except maybe Paul, stole laundry. The machines on campus used a weird system where you'd buy a futuristic-looking plastic chip for fifty cents in the Forum, and then stick the chip in the laundry machine before each load (washers & dryers). Once the chip was in the slot, a sensor would read the chip (to make sure it wasn't a fake!) and then pull the chip into the darkness where it could be collected and melted down and made into shoes or something. The details on where the chips go is fuzzy, but the important part is sticking the chip in. One of the first things I learned on campus was how to beat the system. There were two rival systems, both of which I'll explain in graphic detail.
- FISH & LURE SYSTEM: The trick behind both systems was to stick your chip in the machine far enough for the sensor to read it and start your load, and then pull the chip out and use it again later. A lot of people poked a hole in one end and then tied string or floss through the hole. Once the chip was read, they simply pulled the chip out via the string. I started out using this system, but found a few things wrong. First, sometimes the back of the chip got caught in the machine when you were pulling out, and using a string didn't give you a lot off "wiggle" control when trying to free the chip. Also, if you lost control and the chip + string got sucked into the machine, then the friendly Maytag staff who collected the chips would see the string and figure out that something "fishy" (pun: fish & lure system) was going on. This would come as a shock to them, I'm sure.
- NEEDLENOSE PLIERS SYSTEM: My system of choice. My high school supplied me with a pair of needlenose pliers upon my successful graduation, and I soon put the tool to use stealing laundry. Here, you simply grip the chip with the edge of the pliers and pull it out when you're done. The benefit is that you have more control over the chip if it gets stuck in the machine. The downside is that once you use that one chip 30 or 40 times, the end gets all eaten up, and then you have to shell out, like, fifty cents to buy a new chip. LAME!
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- MODERN AGE: In fall 2001 we were all suprised to find that every laundry room was gutted and replaced with new washers and driers. Say what?? The new machines (which are all digital and stuff), read your P-Card ("Patriot Card"), which is like your Grinnell credit card, and automatically deducted the now higher seventy-five cents per load. Suddenly, without warning, the campus got a whole lot stinkier.
- ETHICS: Yeah, I know. Stealing is bad. But here are my reasons for doing it all those years: (1) Everyone was doing it. It's not like I was the one bad apple ruining the laundry room for the whole school. Everyone was doing it. (2) I didn't see who my crime affected, therefore my conscience remained clean. (3) I was really good about cleaning the lint screens before every load. Clearly, this good habit balanced out the bad habit of stealing the services which produced the lint build-up in the first place. (4) Clean clothes create a positive work environment. Stinky clothes would turn off the prospies, and then Grinnell would lose a ton of money. In truth, Grinnell should have been paying us to wash our clothes. (5) My parents made me grow up in a consequence-free clothes-washing environment. This "laundry is free" world, as twisted as it sounds, was the world I was used to.
- PLIERS: So anyway, you see the pliers in Johnny's coat pocket in panel 2.
- MAP: The map in the first panel is from my prospie packet. I physically cut out a window in the bristol board original and pasted the map underneath -- these were the golden days before Photoshop.
- OIL PAINTING CLUB: Also in panel 2 is a note on the door that says "OIL PAINTING CLASS, [CANNON], X3858" -- I had been thinking at one point about starting an oil painting club on campus, with the underlying goal being to get Grinnell to buy all of my supplies for me, since they funded a lot of clubs. Now, I actually felt guilty about this plan, and it never got off the ground.
- QPOC, in panel 4, stands for "Queer Persons of Color," a club that I was excluded from for at least two reasons.
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