Agavni Mehrabi ’26 is double majoring in government and finance. Outside of The Flat Hat, Agavni is a member of WCWM 90.9, Library Ambassadors, and Archery Club. Email Agavni at almehrabi@wm.edu.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
As an out-of-state student, the days leading up to my first day of school were very overwhelming. Even as a junior, it was a lot to take on. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. to catch a plane, before moving everything from storage and ordering some perishable staples (without parental assistance) on the same day. All of this, while doing the same syllabus-snooping, friend meetups and room and closet preparation as everyone else.
I couldn’t even go to the Block Party. I was so busy that I drank only one bottle of water that first Sunday I came back, and it showed when I didn’t have to go to the bathroom that whole day, and again when I passed out, red, hot and dehydrated, on my mattress for the following few days.
Why am I sharing this? Not for a pity party. I am sure the freshmen can tell you orientation stories more horrific than the anecdote I just shared. My intention is simply to set up some context leading up to how disappointing my recent First Day of Classes was, after all I had been through.
It all started when I got out of my 9:30 a.m. class. (The class I thought was a 10:00 a.m., the one I thought I waited outside of in order to let the previous class finish before realizing the “previous” class was, indeed, my very own.) I had already made two previous flops, one of which I just paraphrased in the parentheses, and another of which may or may not have consisted of me spilling hot tea all over the Sadler terrace steps while trying to say hello to somebody. Therefore, it was with a somewhat already frazzled state of mind that I walked over to the Residence Life office.
Why did I decide to go there? I wanted a refund for the $83 dollars in my Express account that I had allocated exclusively for printing and laundry, which could no longer go to laundry because the new SpeedyQueen laundry system did not take Express. And nobody can try convincing me that the cents-per-page for printing would carry me the whole way alone. I knew refunds are not a part of the standard terms of service for most things purchased on this campus, but I also knew that the school could not expect me to know the laundry system would suddenly change. All I could be expected to know was that there is a fee charged for every time Express money is loaded, and I wanted to reduce how much of this I paid by loading a hunk sum of money into my card at once.
So I told this to the lady at the reception desk. To which she said, although laundry is a Residence Life problem, Express Dollars are a Campus Center problem.
Thus began my grand trek to the misnomered building. And in this I am not exaggerating. I walked in 95 degree Fahrenheit, 65% humidity type of weather. I was sweating at the end of it. And the lady at the Tribe Card department told me to go back to the Residence Life office.
She told me she only included information about the laundry system change on her website out of courtesy, that laundry was by no means her responsibility. To which I responded that this was more of an Express Dollars issue. To which she responded she didn’t do refunds. This is when I said that this was, in fact, an extenuating circumstance. Which is when she said that it wouldn’t have to be if I had checked the announcement made over the summer. Of course, I pointed out that I had this money in my account before the summer began.
The next part of the exchange was my favorite part because this is when she said I could simply spend that $83 on Chick-fil-a. Never mind that I have dining dollars that I could just as easily spend on that establishment. I wouldn’t even spend those Express Dollars on Wawa, or on the Culture Cafe. I am a student struggling to pay my rising tuition, who loaded that money to have the bare necessity of clean clothing for the rest of my college years. I am not someone who has $83 to blow on a chicken craving. There is a difference.
Now, she did save her best argument for last. She said that, as the Tribe Card department, it was not in her control if another department at the school decided to stop using Express Dollars as valid currency. She was simply the arbiter of that currency itself. The problem is that even after I called Residence Life, they insisted that I really could get that refund — that I was indeed entitled to it — but that they could not be the ones to give it to me. And they refused to talk with the Tribe Card department on the phone to sort the whole mess out. Talk about bureaucratic red tape, bloat, intercommunicational deadlock, etc., etc.
Anyways, I had class at 12:30 p.m., so I ran over to the Raymond A. Mason School of Business even though nothing really got solved. I got there early, so I decided I deserved a little pick-me-up, all things considered. That’s when I asked for a black coffee on Drips and Sips. You know, that little perk that we pay for in our ever price-inflated All Access meal plans. That little deal that used to give us unlimited coffee, tea and lemonade two years ago, then just coffee and tea at select locations (just the Mason School of Business and Integrated Science Center) one year ago. Well guess what? The barista told me that it didn’t exist anymore. I asked for clarification: Would it exist in a few weeks? No. Nowhere? No. They’re just as dead as the Griffin Deal now.
Ironically, I think I’ll need that $83 now. Maybe that was the plan all along.