As an incoming freshman, emerging from the comforting womb of high school, you are given one task that will prove if you are a responsible human being: make your identification card last until you graduate.
You sit down in the Registrar’s Office and they snap a picture that will look nothing like you in a week. Get ready because you�ll be carrying this card with you for the next four to six years.
By Mike Rubino,
Senior Staff Writer/Cartoonist
As an incoming freshman, emerging from the comforting womb of high school, you are given one task that will prove if you are a responsible human being: make your identification card last until you graduate.
You sit down in the Registrar’s Office and they snap a picture that will look nothing like you in a week. Get ready because you�ll be carrying this card with you for the next four to six years.
The student ID card isn’tvery good at withstanding a lot of punishment, unlike the American Express Gold card, which can be run over by a train and still work. Swipe your card too fast and you�ll begin to develop a nice white streak across the front of it. Carrying it around in your pocket is fine, until you sit down and you hear a faint pop. That would be your card splitting in half. And don’teven think about punching a hole in it; it will be a great idea at first, until the entire integrity of the card is compromised and soon that hole cracks off and the whole thing breaks faster than Windows ME.
No one wants to pay for a new card (and rightly so, $25.00 is a little outrageous!), so we must try our best to mend the broken wounds.
The strongest thing on that card is the magnetic strip in the back, so take care of it and it will take care of you. It will likely be the only thing holding your card together after it cracks in half. I recommend packing tape or, if you must, Scotch tape. In my personal experience, you can get away with one to two layers of tape over the barcode before the dining hall can no longer read it. This is a problem, because if you ever want to eat here, you�ll need that barcode.
There are a few truly responsible seniors I know that actually have their card intact. To them, I give a pat on the back. They passed the test (sort of like when you had to care for that egg back in high school). I failed miserably. However I refuse to ever pay for a new card. That would be like giving up!
When something gets old and crackly, you don’tget rid of it for a replacement. You care for it, nurture it, and cover it in Scotch tape�like �Tuesdays with Student ID Card.�
I plan on getting out of this school with the same card I came in with. It may not look like me anymore; it may have a rough, sticky texture to it; and it may only work 67% of the time in the dining hall, but I�m not giving up on it.
So take care of your card, because you aren’tgetting a second for free.
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