The things we do for a free t-shirt

Upon purchasing my last textbook for this semester, the bookstore cashier offered me what is called a “Cardopoly” board. It’s a promotion from the card office to encourage students to visit various places on campus and obtain stamps to enter a drawing for prizes. It looks like a Monopoly board and tells you which places you need to visit to get your board stamped.

Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes of my life was accepting this challenge. At first, I saw that there were a few places on campus that were close by that would not be at all difficult to get stamps from. But as I ventured to buildings I’ve never heard of, I ended up visiting every edge of campus and walking about eight thousand miles. And while the game board told me which places would provide stamps, it offered nothing by way of how to get to these many locations. Exploration took the most time by far.

I wrapped up a few loose ends (of the game) after my stats class before turning homeward, the final of which required a visit to the Health & Wellness Center. Of course, this sent me down a steep hill and far away from my bus stop. At the bottom of that hill, exhausted and realizing I'd been walking around outside for most of the day, I called Karen. She offered to pick me up before I could even ask.

But I did finish! We went to the card office before returning home so that I could turn in my board and be entered into the drawing for some prizes (like a new iPad and stuff). The first 500 to turn in the board are given a free t-shirt. I think they said I brought the number up to somewhere in the 70s, so they handed me my shirt, swiped my card to enter me in the drawing, and sent me on my merry way.

I have never worked so hard for a t-shirt. I spent several hours visiting the far reaches of campus and now my body is exhausted. I guess the promotion worked though, right?