A spectre haunting Vassar—the spectre of deceit. Every Vassar student has recently been given a shiny new travel mug. They seem like a perfectly innocent gift of goodwill. But do the shiny exteriors of the mugs hide a dark secret within?
We at The Misc have done some investigative journalism, and we’ve discovered some shocking truths. The $80,000 you paid in tuition, room and board and fees did not go to tuition, room and board and fees. No, your money has fueled something far less valuable. The truth, the horrible, sinister, can-hardly-believe-it truth is that you are now the proud owner of a travel mug worth more than four times its weight in gold. That’s right: The allegedly free travel cup was actually $80,000.
The truth hurts. This revelation might feel like it’s come out of nowhere. You may be feeling shocked, saddened, ashamed to know that you’ve spent so, so much money on a little metal cup that leaks. But you are not alone. Every Vassar student fell for this trap. We’ve all been lured in and hoodwinked, betrayed by those who we kind of trusted. But this isn’t over. No, we’ve merely scratched the surface of the Vassar Travel Mug Conspiracy (VTMC).
A naive, innocent student may assume that these Midas-like mugs were a recent idea, cooked up by the Vassar Student Association and Campus Dining as “a solution to the compostable cups previously provided at Gordon Commons.” But Vassar has been dropping hints of this bait-and-switch for decades, maybe even…centuries.
What letter does Vassar’s oldest dorm start with? M (as in mugs). When you unscramble the letters of Matthew Vassar, you get “the rat was VAMS” (VAMS of course standing for Vassar And Mugs Store). Vassar was founded in 1861. 1 + 8 – 6 + 1 = 4. What has 4 letters? Mugs. And the most damning piece of evidence of all: the name of Vassar’s on-campus coffee shop location? The Mug. Does VC even stand for Vassar College? Or was it traVel Cups all along?
Upon closer inspection of the little piece of paper that came inside the mug, it appears that it was made by a company called Gordon Sinclair. Often, last names come before first names in formal settings (such as business and manufacturing), and commas can be omitted in the printing process, so maybe “Gordon Sinclair” is really “Gordon, Sinclair,” or “Sinclair Gordon.” But is this Sinclair Gordon a relative of Commons Gordon? In other words, Gordon, Commons? Or Gordon Commons/All Campus Dining Center/the Deece? The seeds of truth have always been there, and now it’s time to till the fields.
Questions may be swirling through your head right now. How? Who? Can I trade my mug in for $80,000 or just store credit at Gordon Sinclair? But one voice must be shouting louder than the rest. One question, circling through your mind: Why? Why would Vassar do this? What do they have to gain?
You’ve heard of Big Pharma. Big Technology. Big Brother. But another titan of industry lurks just beyond the horizon, taunting us with its portability, its convenience. That’s right: Big Mug is watching you.
After some long, hard digging, we’ve discovered that Big Mug bought out Vassar years ago. This is the first year they’ve been able to amass enough “tuition” money to fund their worldwide enterprise enough to give us a piece of the pie. By providing everyone with a “free” travel cup, Big Mug hopes that we’ll do their marketing for them, thus saving them millions. However, they’re out to trick the masses. While our mugs are tens of thousands of dollars and show it, the mugs they peddle out to the rest of America will be cheap knockoffs. And when they’re sitting pretty with their dirty mug money, ordinary people will suffer from insufficient insulation and leaking lids.
Wake up, Vassar. Don’t let Big Mug hoodwink you into playing their games. Be aware, be alert and know where your money is really going.