In the most exciting news I have, my rental office has a fancy new system for accepting payments!

The two rent ladies and one rent man know me well since I’ve been seeing them monthly for most of the last five years. (Before that, in a failed experiment, I lived off-campus. There was also a dorm year. If you’re doing math, I’ll confirm that yes, I’ve been in undergraduate for seven years.)

So, anyway, I paid with my debit card and rent man, let’s call him Ralph, brought out a stamp. This was a radical new departure from the old name/apartment number pen based system. So, accordingly, I let out an enthusiastic, impressed, “Oooooooh! A stamp!!” Ralph chuckled a little and then used my debit receipt to deftly dispense with some hardcore stamping action. He then asked my student number. My student number? This caused my world to started spinning, so many changes, so quickly! I told him. He asked again. And I told him again.

“That can’t be right”, said Ralph. “Oh, it’s right”, said me. “Student numbers can’t start with that combination of digits.” said Ralph.

So, with devilish glee, I whipped out my student card and plunked it down in front of a seriously skeptical Ralph. Now, the thing with my student card is that it is truly old school. I got it way back in 1998. That year was the very last time the University used a 7 digit student number system. It went to 9, the next year. The picture is black and white, fuzzy and grainy, the colours are old and faded. Well, basically it just looks like a piece of shit. Especially when compared to the new fancy holographic, laser, 3-D deals they have now.

So, I threw that bad boy down on the desk, and Ralph was truly amazed. He picked up that card and it was like he had rediscovered an old lover, long since departed. His eyes widened as he fondled and examined it.  He laughed deeply and genuinely, he seemingly couldn’t believe it. He told me they had made those type of cards for only one year before changing everything and informed me that if I stopped by the registrars office they would give me a brand new fancy card, free of charge. He advised against it though. As he put it, “That one’s a rare classic.” And thus concludes my exciting rent story!