The Great Newspaper Disappearances
When I get on campus early every morning, I go through a routine.
I get to campus around 8:15, lock my bike up, and then swing by the line of newspaper boxes on the way to class.
My usual reading list for the day is The Independent Florida Alligator and the Gainesville Sun. The Alligator I read for the sports page and the editorial page, and the Gainesville Sun for the comics.
The Sun is the only paper on campus that offers the comics. Papers like The New York Times and USA Today are far too busy being serious and important to have anything to do with those silly comic strips.
I’m something of a true believer in the comics. I grew up reading them and fighting with my brothers for the Sunday page. It’s easier to start off your day with a smile by depending on the comics instead of the tragedy and drama that fills the rest of the paper.
Recently, the newspaper crop has been mysteriously running short on the UF campus. If you go here, then you know that most of the newspapers other than the alligator are in bins that require you to swipe your Gator 1 ID in order to get the paper. In theory, that’s a great idea.
However, many of these bins have been malfunctioning lately. I’ll swipe my card 16 different ways, swear, and usually leave in frustration and distress. If I ever remember to bring a pry bar to campus, they’ll rue the day they crossed me!
Meanwhile, other bins seem completely out of service. Papers in past semesters typically do not disappear before 10:30 or so, by which time we’re in fourth period. But when I make my way around at 8:15 in the morning, some of them are completely empty!
There’s only a few solutions to this, but pretty much all of them mean we’re getting ripped off. Either the Gainesville Sun is going around, pillaging their own bins to put the papers into coin-fed ones, or they’re switching around the days of and amounts of papers that get put into each one.
There’s some kind of nefarious scheme going on here. I will not stop until I figure this out. Our comics liberty cannot be endangered.
