The Shin-Kicker Again? Part II

When I reached the alley I heard a muffled yelp and looked around the corner just in time to see the shin-kicker tumbled on the ground with two guys on top of him and a third ripping the backpack off his shoulders.

I wanted to cheer. Finally someone was getting what they deserved. Let them take his textbooks. He could spare the couple hundred bucks of cash. Let him get tripped up in a dark alley on a muggy Missouri evening. It served him right.

It was like a club descended out of the darkness and crashed against my skull.
“Remember the mission!”

The mission? No way. No, please. The mission didn’t include the shin-kicker. Not him! I was supposed to protect people. That meant normal people. Not people who go around kicking immigrant gorilla’s shins for no reason. Come on. Please. Be reasonable.

No good.

With my most fear inspiring gorilla howl I sprang around the corner of the alley, both arms flailing to increase the perception of my size, praying that the dimness of the night and the padding in my costume would combine to form the image of an invincible foe in the minds of the attackers.

The guy with the backpack, who had been charging toward the alley entrance froze. I couldn’t really tell how big he was. All I saw were the whites of his eyes. In a second he had dropped the backpack with a thump and whipped around down the alley. The two thugs on top of the shin-kicker raced after him, slowed only momentarily by the shin-kicker grabbing at their heels as they leapt up.

I let out one more Gonga howl and stopped right in front of the shin-kicker. I held out my hand.

He paused for a second in shock, then grabbed it and jumped to his feet, almost
toppling me over in the process.

I pounded my chest and threw back my head in a vicory howl, then ran down the alley after the attackers. I knew a shortcut home from there. And besides, I really didn’t want to stay around and talk to the shin-kicker. Saving his books was one thing. Letting him thank me was quite another.

The Shin-Kicker Again? Part I

It was a muggy Missouri evening. I had spent the day in my gorilla suit, walking around campus and playing Gonga. Thankfully I spent a good part of the day sitting in the shade at Speaker’s Circle, playing my accordion while my buddies handed out flyers.

I was hot. I was sweaty. I was stuffed up from that ridiculous cold which had decided to make me it’s pet and kept me from hearing much of anything. So I probably stank as well. But at least I couldn’t smell myself. I’ve never washed my costume…never mind.

I saw the familiar flash of white teeth and curly black hair as my campus nemesis, the shin-kicker turned down the street ahead of me. Thankfully he hadn’t seen me. He swung easily along, his huge knees bending at each step and his feet seeming poised, even at this distance, to fling a kick at the shins of any haphazard passerby who happened to be dressed in an anonymous gorilla suit. At least, that’s how he always treated me. I had taken to avoiding particular parts of campus at particular times because of him.

I slowed to a shuffle to let him get further down the street. It would be a good end to the day if I could avoid him.

He turned down an alley, his neon green backpack flashing in the dusk.

I breathed a sigh of relief. And yes, I took my time. Let him get as far away as he wants.

But of course, things never happen the way they should.

To Make A Buck Or Two

Gonga will do anything to support his family. He is a very loyal, self-sacrificing individual. He also loves playing music, which makes for perfect harmony when you place an accordion in his hands and tell him to go play in public. Back in Africa, he liked to set a little cap on the ground and play tunes for anyone who threw money into the cap. Sometimes people just threw pennies. But every now and then a gold dollar would land in the cap. Then Gonga would dance as well as sing!

Now he doesn’t set a cap on the ground. Instead he sets up his board with his employer’s logo and plays to his heart’s content. He likes it much better that way. Now he doesn’t have to worry about the “shin-kicker” coming along and stealing his hard earned wages.

But playing for money only works for those with musical ability. What if you can’t keep a beat to save your life and even the birds fly away squawking when you open your mouth? Besides investing in a psycho-music-therapist, there might be an easier way to get a buck or two.

Yes, I’m talking about selling textbooks. But what if you’ve already sold all your books and are sitting around a home, wondering how to afford to go out this Thursday (or Friday, if you’re not lucky enough to be in the business school and have Fridays off.) So you pick up your room-mate’s biology textbook and trot it down to The Textbook Game. Viola! You have $$$!

Better yet, after exhausting your room-mate’s stash (thankfully he’s at some study group for most of the day) you could go stake out the library. Just wait till someone leaves their nook for a bathroom break. Nonchalantly saunter over to their hide-away and pick up that big fat Calculus textbook. Slip it into your own knapsack and carry it off to The Textbook Game.

On second thought…maybe not.

(Disclaimer: The Textbook Game is not liable for anyone who interprets this advice as anything but farcical and will refuse to purchase textbooks which it has reason to believe were stolen.)

To Become A Pirate

All you need to become a pirate is to learn to say “Arrr-bi-trahz” with your head cocked to one side, your left eye squinted and a perfect leer plastered all over your face. Just don’t look at yourself in the mirror when you do it. They tend to crack.

Actually there is a fine line between true dastardly pirate-ness and legitimate arbitrage. Sometimes it’s only the line between being in jail or out of jail. But not everyone bothers to know the difference.

The main element required for a successful arbitrage is information. For better or worse, thetextbookgame.com provides a piece of that very information.

You can go to the website and type in an ISBN number. Within 24 hours you know exactly what price The Textbook Game will offer to buy back your book.

Next you, the astute student, go online and find an amazing steal of a deal. Quickly doing the math, you realize that you will still make money if you overnight the book to yourself. Finally you bring it to The Textbook Game to resell for a higher price.

But that’s a lot of work. It’s even easier if you already have the textbook sitting in your dorm or off-campus location and can just pick it up and carry it over and sell it. You can even go online and see who will get you the better deal? The University Bookstore, or The Textbook Game? Want to know who wins every time? Why don’t you find out!

Arbitrage

Arbitrage. Now that’s a fancy word! I like to say it slowly and roll it around in my mouth. If you say it with a nice grating sound, it even makes you sound like a pirate.

“Arrr-bi-trahz”

It even means something sort of piraty. Find goods sold at a low price in one area, buy them and transport them to a high price area for re-sale in order to reap the profits. Theoretically this only goes on for a short time before everyone figures it out and starts doing the same thing. Then the low prices go up because demand is higher and the high prices come down because the supply is higher. And then you have that fancy economic term called “equilibrium.”

But before the equilibrium comes the “arr-bi-trahz.” (That’s so much fun to say!)

It’s a word Gonga loves saying. But he probably has no idea what it means. He’s still working on picking up the day-to-day lingo required to represent The Textbook Game on the street. He doesn’t need to know fancy terms like arbitrage. (Yes, I am working very hard to develop his character while I wear his suit.)

Yet Gonga has been a first-hand witness to attempts at arbitrage, even though he may not have recognized it.

The Mission

Oh I hate the mission. It is the most horribly challenging difficult thing I have ever tried to do in my life. The shin-kickers only make it worse.

I’ll try to stop whining. However, you must know that self-control is one of those things I have always struggled with. And the mission requires inordinate amounts of self control. Not just once a year during some grand event, but every single day.

And today was no exception. I was walking past Speaker’s Circle the other day and was challenged by a green man. I wanted to pummel him so bad. It would have made a great scene! But “Gonga” wouldn’t do something like that. And the mission light started flashing inside my head.

“Remember, remember, remember.”

Sometimes it’s hard to make friends with the random green men in Speaker’s Circle. But the mission makes it worth it.

What is the mission? Well, like I said earlier...

My purpose is to protect people from the face-smashers.

All people.

Anywhere.

Anytime.

Even the ones who come up and kick me in the shins for laughs.

I put that in italics and centered one night when I was feeling very poetic. Doesn’t it look like a poem now! Sometimes I’m brilliant at 2 AM.

The Shin-Kicker

I suppose everyone has them. Those random people who walk into your life, kick you in the shins and calmly walk out again. My problem was that my shin-kickers didn’t always walk back out

I was in my Gonga suit during finals week of last semester, standing on Lowry Mall just opposite Memorial Union on the MU campus. It was cold, so for once I wasn’t sweating that much, which was nice. It was ten minutes before the hour, which meant that exams were just letting out and crowds of students were streaming past.

I passed out flyers as fast as my numb hands would allow, muttering something like, “Sell your books back to The Textbook Game.” It was a half mumble, half gorilla howl which I had been perfecting over the last weeks as I developed Gonga’s character.

A college kid with dark curly hair and glasses paused in front of me as I fumbled to pull the next flyer off the stack. His white teeth flashed as he suddenly swung his foot back and aimed a kick straight at my shins. I jumped backward, but not soon enough. His white and black track shoes connected sharply with my shins.

“Hey!” I shouted, forgetting about the gorilla voice.

The boy had already turned and plunged back into the crowd, laughing hysterically.
I teetered on the edge of charging after him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and putting him into a full nelson until he explained why in the world he decided to kick me. That’s when self control snapped in.

“He’s not the enemy,” a little voice soothed me. “He probably thought your gorilla suit would pad your shins more than that.”

“Hold it right there!” the voice in my head shouted. I had taken a running step after the kid. “Cut it out and simmer down!”

I listened now, fists clenched at my sides, the flyers forgotten. “Remember the mission.” I told myself. “Remember the mission.”