I took microeconomics last semester in hopes of understanding the concept of money. I don’t think it worked. Maybe it’s because my professor talked so quietly; he needed closed captions to hear himself think. Maybe it’s because I always put all my hotels on Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues then go to jail for rolling doubles three times in a row. Even though I won second place in a beauty contest, I can’t explain why I still have so much money on my meal card. Despite my best efforts to unload this wad of currency in the past week ($60 on a dinner for three at the Bowling Greenery, $50 at Chily’s), I still have $845.85 on my meal card as of April 6.

Since I didn’t have any homework this weekend, an occurrence rarer than a Detroit Tigers victory, I spent the majority of it planning how I would spend this large sum of money, which is not mine but my father’s. After serious consideration, I will not spend one cent of these funds at any of the food courts on campus. The way I see it, I can survive using just one phrase: “Are you gonna finish that?” Yes, this money will serve a greater purpose than just nourishing this lowly college freshman.

First, I will spend the 85 cents on what I think the “Now That’s What I Call Music” CD set is worth. These compilations of pop music would make Staind lead singer Aaron Lewis whine more than he already does. I saw an ad for the ninth and latest edition of this series, and it told me that “rush delivery was available.” Take your time, UPS. I’m in no hurry. In fact, it makes me wonder why it’s OK to have these CDs sent to me, yet I?m not allowed to send mail bombs to these awful singers’ houses. The outcome is the same.

I will contribute $50 to a foundation that I just started, “Give Our University a Parking Garage.” Sure, it may be unsightly and costly, but it should end my gripe with Lot Six Overflow. I’ll even throw in another $20 in another new fund to give the new parking garage a news ticker similar to the one in Times Square.

I’ll glue $250 worth of quarters to various spots on campus. That equals a thousand random souls furiously chiseling the sidewalk for 25 hard-earned cents.

I’ll spend $60, one for each minute I lost to daylight savings, divided amongst all of the farmers in the world. They can take the day off and work on their special tans. In the Information Age, agriculture shouldn’t be able to manipulate two hours out of every year and throw off my sleeping pattern, which consists of going to bed at 3 a.m. and waking up at the crack of noon. That?s the way I like it. Lazy.

I’ll spend $8 on two Frisco Melts from Steak ‘n Shake. One of them I will give to somebody important in this city, in hopes he could bring one of these 24-hour restaurants to Bowling Green. I would eat the other one. Man, those are good sandwiches.

It probably wouldn’t hurt if our room were to be cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, fumigated, and hosed down. That cleaning bill could run as much as $200, including gas mask and radiation suit.

That leaves me with $307, and I have already changed the world by leaps and bounds. There are plenty of other ways I could put the remaining money to good use. I could use it to see if terrorists really are tampering with our bizarre weather to make it snow in April. I could donate it to the Red Cross so they can afford wooden stakes and hammers to stop greedy vampires from stealing all the blood. But instead, I have narrowed it down to two choices: bring home 307 bottles of Mug Root Beer, or give it to The BG News so it can hire a real writer instead of me.