Dear readers,
How lovely to write to you again. How long the days since we last spoke. Alas, I am afraid I must break even more devastating news.
Here’s the thing: The laundry prices have gone up by 10 cents.
Now, I have been unable to verify this information for myself yet, so I must rely on my source. This has nothing to do with the fact that I have not yet done laundry this semester and everything to do with literally any other reason you could think of.
The problem, dear readers, as I’m sure by now you know, is that 10 cents every week is a lot of cents. Let’s just say, for example, that one were to do laundry 13 times a semester, at a rate of about once per week. That would come out to about $1.30 extra that that student will have paid by the end of this semester compared to last. And, to be fair, let’s knock off a cent just for averages’ sake: $1.29.
That number is completely arbitrary, but it just so happens that $1.29 is still the amount that your standard song will sell for on iTunes. Granted, I do not use iTunes and I know no one in my life that does, but let’s say that one did. And let’s say that one person had been robbed of their $1.29. What would they miss out on?
“Believe” by Cher, for one. Probably a Coldplay song. A six-minute track called “Mouth Sounds & Massaging” by GiBi ASMR. These are real hits, people. A very long time ago, Steve Jobs decided that music had a cost, and the cost was a little under the amount of money we would save per semester had the College not raised the laundry prices by 10 cents. He was a very bright man. He knew this future.
For once, on this front I don’t claim conspiracy. Firstly, I still have yet to meet a single individual who actively uses the iTunes store like it’s 2014 and we all need to feverishly purchase “Cups” by Anna Kendrick. Our institution has not robbed us of our iTunes tracks on purpose––it was simply an unfortunate consequence of the real culprit: Those creatures that live in the washers and eat at least one sock without fail every time you wash anything have demanded more payment. They claim inflation.
The unfortunate reality is, whatever the reason, these prices are here to stay. I know we’d all much prefer dancing to Cher’s dulcet, autotuned voice or hearing Chris Martin say some lyrics maybe (I’m still not quite sure what Coldplay does). Or, who knows––maybe we’d all be gettin’ down to the sweet sweet smacks and slops that “Mouth Sounds” has to offer. But this is a future that cannot be. Much like how iTunes as a business model has been long dead for many years now, so too are our dreams of rockin’ out to these and other delectable tunes. Like our $1.29, we send this grief out into the universe and hope it brings some good. At least our shirts will be clean.