bsat blog

There aren’t many advantages that high school has over college, but the fact that (pending budget cuts) courses generally come replete with your very own, musty-smelling, heavily-doodled text book is most certainly one of them. It might not seem like a cool thing at the time, especially since one of the previous owners (listed as either Al Coholic, I.P. Freely, or Ebeneezer Splooge) has erased the eyes of several prominent historical figures and added two crudely drawn penises to Richard Nixon’s hands in his iconic boarding-the-helicopter photo. Still, once you get to college and are subjected to the epithet-provoking kick-in-the-nuts that is buying and attempting to re-sell your textbooks, you’ll understand.

You know how some people say that a car is the worst investment you can make because it depreciates in value immediately as it’s taken off the lot? Well those people clearly have never purchased a textbook which not only depreciates in value the moment you use it, but also can’t be used on sweet road trips. You’ll go to sell a $110 Latin textbook back at the end of the semester and you’ll get $15 bucks for it, because they’re “upgrading to new editions.” It’s fucking Latin, the language has been dead for 200 something years, what are you going to put in a new edition? English?

At least with a car you get the value of using the car, which arguably makes up for some of the price deterioration. Once you’ve read a book it’s pretty much useless. The only thing you can do besides sell it back for pennies on the dollar is keep a few on prominent display to make yourself look smart. And that only works to a point, but I guess it does work. I mean, it does look pretty sophisticated when you’re using a paperback Kafka as a coaster for your Busch Light. But then again, it might just be because you’re using a coaster.