Last week, my life was fantastic. I had just moved into one of Georgetown’s finest townhouses. I was finishing all of my work and getting plenty of sleep every night. Sure, it was only the first full week of the semester, but I was still feeling pretty accomplished.
A week later, on one fine Tuesday afternoon, I had been in class for over two hours already, and my brain wanted to rest—preferably by reading trashy celebrity blogs. As my computer began loading dlisted.com, I felt a poke in my shoulder.
My friend Nina was logged onto www.gocard.georgetown.edu. What could she possibly have to show me, I wondered? And then I saw it: right next to “flex dollars” was the most beautiful number I had ever seen in my life: $200.00.
“Nina,” I wrote, typing as frantically as I could on whatever word document was currently open, “You only get $75 Flex Dollars with a 14 meal plan.”
“I know,” she typed back. “I switched.”
I struggled to comprehend her trickery. Nina is an iEcon major, so her education mostly consists of learning the rules of the game in order to exploit them later. That night, with AccessPlus open on the screen, I wondered if switching meal plans was really worth it. I mean, I was perfectly happy with the $50.00 that came with my 10-meal plan. Did I really want to go through the hassle of changing from 10 to 14 and back down to 10 before January 22? And more importantly, did I really want to taint my soul with something so obviously dishonest?
Here was a way that a poor college student could benefit from a flaw in the system. With the ability to manipulate the institution for my own deserving gain, why shouldn’t I?
So I clicked the button. I sealed my fate. Within two days, I giddily watched as my flex dollar deposit soared. Within another two days, I giggled maniacally at the thought of swiping my GoCard, of exchanging those beautiful flex dollars for coffee at Midnight Mug and super-sized food products from the posted list at Vittles.
My joy was so great that I wanted to share it with everyone. I told my friends. I told my coworkers. But the other night, as I ate dinner with Nina and her roommate, Jen, I told the two of them. They exchanged glances immediately.
And immediately, I knew that I had done something wrong.
“Suzy,” Jen said, “flex dollars aren’t free.”
The lyrics to Flight of the Conchords’ “What Is Wrong With the World Today?” started flashing before my eyes.
I demanded an explanation. They gave me one.
Sometime after Nina committed her flex dollar treachery, a 120 dollar charge had appeared on her student bill. The university had spent a great deal of time calculating this specific amount, but the exact measures by which they did so were still slightly murky, since Nina did not understand a word of the exchange between herself and one of the university’s employees when she approached him about his figure.
Furthermore, when Jen had changed her meal plan, sans any sort of nefarious intention whatsoever, from 14 to 10, she had been charged an amount equal to the number of additional flex dollars that she had accumulated.
So what did this mean? Were we no longer even guaranteed one free meal plan change within the initial grace period? Had Georgetown won yet again? And, even more importantly: how much of a hit was my student account about to take?
Defeated, I logged onto my facebook account and clicked the name of the first person I could remember telling about my scheme.
“Do not change meal plan,” I wrote. “Will tell you story later.”
