Welcome back to Arendelle campus, my friends, and cheers to the new year! I hope you brought back your warmest magic-repressing gloves and your goofiest snowman sidekick, because it looks like we are still quite frozen here at the University of Notre Dame du Lac (just try to forget that beautiful yet isolated day where it was fifty degrees and every pair of white Converse on campus finally saw the light of 2018).

Speaking of Frozen, I recently bought the DVD on my very favorite website, the highly esteemed Amazon.com. This remarkable event occurred because I decided that buying a physical copy of a movie that I could just as easily stream on the Internet was a good way to avoid dropping money on a variety of textbooks that are a lot less exciting than magic trolls and Idina Menzel’s voice. Given the fact that my laptop offers me no way to watch a DVD, this was probably the most moronic purchase I have ever made, but it got me thinking. We college students have many, many thoughts and experiences while traversing the treacherous terrain of Amazon, and more than likely, we are going through a lot of similar things.

In order to demonstrate this reality, I would like to present you with five thoughts that might run through your head during your typical beginning-of-the-semester Amazon shopping spree:

  1. “What are the odds I actually need this book?” If you’re thinking this thought, you probably belong to an Arts and Letters major in which professors tend to assign ten books for one class, but ultimately just spend the entire semester talking about the one that is most relevant to their personal research (I’m looking at you, beloved but occasionally exasperating English profs).
  2. “If I buy that What Do You Meme? game it will definitely be great for the dorm, so it’s not even a selfish purchase. It’s for the community.” Amazon can do a lot of things to an innocent college student, like help them perpetuate meme culture and convince them that every purchase they make actually stems from deeply rooted altruism.
  3. “If I buy an Echo Dot I will never have to have another social interaction ever again.” Alexa, what are we?
  4. “I just dropped money on some very scholarly Celtic literature so I definitely also deserve to buy six months’ worth of Lucky Charms that I will undoubtedly consume in less than three weeks.” You know how Tom and Donna do that whole “treat yo self” bit on Parks and Rec? You know, where they buy clothes, fragrances, massages, mimosas, and fine leather goods for literally no reason at all? This is the scholar’s version of that.
  5. “Do I even like green tea?” This is what you say when you put a 96 count of green tea into your shopping cart. Because you’re a college student who needs antioxidants. And because Amazon Prime.

Lacey Silvestri is a senior English and history major whose worst nightmare is Alexa taking over the world. Assuage her fears at lsilvest@nd.edu.