Mailbox miseries plague writer

My printer is out of ink. My dad told me whenever it is out to call him, so he can order the ink and send it to me via snail mail. Not knowing what kind to buy anyway, I let him do it. He called me to confirm he sent the package, and I should get it within a couple of days. That was four weeks ago.

Because of new policy enacted this year, postal service is being discontinued to all dorms on campus. The reason for this is unclear-the system was working fine before. I got my mail on a regular basis. It was never stolen or damaged. I was happy with the system, as were most of the students in the dorms.

Now the new policy states if students want to receive mail, they must buy a postal office box for either $22 for six months or $44 for a year. The outrageous price isn't even worth the amount of space you get. The P.O. Boxes are barely the size of a letter. Sure, you can get bigger sizes, but the $22 for six months is the cheapest they have. The bigger they are the more expensive they get.

There is also no way two people can share a P.O. Box, there can be only one name per box.

If mail is bigger than your P.O. Box, (which most cases it will be because I can barely fit my arm in one), the post office will put a yellow piece of paper in the box saying come by during office hours and pick it up. It must be the person the box's name is in, and to get the mail he or she must show their Lion Card.

All of these asinine rules led to me not being able to get my ink until three weeks after the fact.

When the ink had arrived and I went to obtain it I was greeted by a yellow slip of paper saying I couldn't get my mail until office hours, which meant my roommate would have to get it for me since her name was on the box. So I had to wait another week and a half before my roommate could actually go down there and get it. All this time I was wasting money at the library printing off all of my papers I needed for class.

I don't know about everyone's individual financial status, but I for one cannot pay $44 just receive a basic service I am supposed to be getting for free. I don't know if the university understands this, but I am a poor college student.

Going to college is expensive. I have loans already, which will take years to pay off, and I am a sophomore. The university says they care about the students. If this is true, then why would they put us through so much hassle and extortion just to get a basic service? Why would they change something we need so much without as much as letting us decide by vote, since it affects us and out pocketbooks?

I love my university, but it has gone down a notch in my eyes.