https://soundcloud.com/talonmarks/the-envelope-a-podcast-bumfiddling-with-books
Monique Nethington: We’re here on The Envelope with (multimedia editor and columnist) Benji Garcia and Jenny Gonzalez (opinion editor) and my name is Monique Nethington (sports editor); and I’m the girl that you see in all the pictures for The Envelope, wearing the same green jacket all the time-
Benjamin Garcia: Sunglasses-
Monique: Sunglasses and cigarette; everything that is pretentious, brooding and tortured-soulful that you can have.
Jenny Gonzalez: Which is essentially the college experience.
Monique: So the first topic at hand is bumfiddling; more specifically, on how Cerritos fiddles our bums with these outrageously high book prices and parking-
Benjamin: Parking, parking violations; you have to pay for scantrons; the food.
Monique: Yeah, the food specifically.
Benjamin: I think they used to make you pay for the microwave.
Jenny: At Elbow (Room) you couldn’t ask for a fork or napkins unless you bought something there. If you bought their hotpocket you could ask for it; but let’s say that you brought food and I needed a fork I couldn’t (have one); like, I need a goddamn fork.
Benjamin: I’m not saying that we should do this but, I’ve seen people walking sandwiches and muffins and whatever they get it to Elbow (Room) and I think it would be so easy to just snatch (something), you know?
Monique: Don’t do that, that’s illegal, it’s called “stealing.” (The Envelope does not encourage illegal activity.)
Jenny: If you order a water cup and you get soda instead, they can call the cops on you and you can go to jail.
Monique: It’s technically stealing because you did not pay for the soda, you got water, which is free. Water should always be free unless it’s in a bottle… then you’re paying for the bottle and not the water. Prices in general are ridiculous. The world is bumfiddling our wallets.
Benjamin: Water should be free. Food should be free.
Monique: Did you know we don’t pay sales tax on food? It’s considered a necessity. You only pay sales tax on things that are considered luxuries. Like socks.
Benjamin: Like books, oh my god!
Monique: A book can cost like up to $300. The average price for a good text book for one of your core academic classes – math, English or political science – at least $150 to $175; so ridiculous.
Jenny: Considering that my math book is a PDF that’s free, I can’t complain about that.
Monique: (There are ) people that aren’t so lucky to get the PDF file. We’re college students, regardless of how much financial aid we get, most of us don’t have jobs. Our sole focus is school. We need to survive off of that financial aid for the whole semester. Buying four books that cost $175 each, I mean I’m no math major but that sounds like a lot of dollars.
Jenny : I’m very grateful for all the used and rented books, but that doesn’t necessarily help because sometimes I can’t find that book and I have to buy it new.
Monique: Even the used books can be expensive.
Jenny: Definitely, our book store is ridiculous like that.
Benjamin: Sometimes you can’t even get used books because or get the PDF online because you need the access code because the instructor doesn’t want to grade your homework.
Monique: Everything is done online. You need access codes to these specific things. You’re not even paying for the book, you’re paying for the access code. If you get the access code you can usually get the option with the eBook.
Benjamin Often times, a school tends to stay with one publisher over another because of a contractual agreement. So it’s really just about money.
Monique: It’s always going to be about money in this world, we’re a capitalistic nation that only cares about money.
