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Relationship
threads frayed in military
As the sun sets during my commute from Wichita Falls to my small rural town, I think about how the love of my life will soon be waking to the same sun rising in the Persian Gulf where he floats on the waters outside of Bahrain. It’s 4 a.m. when the phone rings, and I hear a staticky voice calling my name. Trying to open one eyelid at a time and understand what is being said becomes quite a task in this state that precedes being completely awake. The satellite off of his ship transmits our voices back to one another in an extraordinary way that perhaps I could understand if I worked for NASA. After a couple of minutes, the voice that accompanied the static with continual delays stops. I hold my breath waiting for more static and a voice to follow this unusually long delay in my love’s response. (Thirty seconds later. . .) No response. The satellite has lost the signal from his Navy ship in the Gulf. For a few brief glorious minutes, the first in about a month, I was able to talk to him over the phone. Simple phone calls are not taken for granted after being separated for long periods of time. Walking into the optometrist office a couple of months ago, I hesitated to pick out new glasses without my fiancé. I tried to imagine what he would have liked had he been there to help me decide on the new investment for my face. I figured he is the one who will have to look at it everyday, so I wanted to find something to please him. I suppose it is always the simple things that trigger our emotions about the love we long to share with important people in our lives who are serving in the military. I found myself engaged in a conversation with the receptionist at the desk who mentioned that her daughter’s new husband was in the Air Force and may be expected to have his deployment in the Gulf extended even longer. Another month passes by, only this time I am sitting in a family doctor’s office watching the news. Over the coughs of a man with a cold and noisy women next to him who are discussing the arrival of their new babies, I try to listen for new information to determine whether my love will be coming home soon. I read an article in Time Magazine about a man that left his wife and son to re-enlist in the Army and was sent off to Kuwait. I am reminded, as I sit there feeling sorry for myself, that my love is not here to comfort me during my visit for a routine check-up. I remember a woman I saw on television a few weeks ago who had delivered twins while her husband was in the Gulf on deployment. There have been many times when I brush away the tears that swell in my eyes during the long commutes when I miss him the most. Instead of pouting about how much I long for him to be here with me, I begin to get angry at the entire situation. No hard feelings toward the president or the military. Just a complete feeling of loneliness that I feel like no one can relate to. Then I get angry at myself for being so ridiculous crying about things I cannot change. On the drive home one evening, I look at the setting sun and imagine my love here in the passenger seat with me. The truth is I don’t know if he is coming home soon or coming home at all. At this point, everything is too unpredictable to make certain expectations about anything concerning our loved ones in the military. What can be expected is that many fiancés, husbands, wives, children, and so on . . . will not be coming home to those of us that anxiously wait for them. I try to believe each day that the phone will ring again tomorrow morning, and that the sun will set another day, while rising in the horizon that my loved one looks upon. During this same evening it occurred to me that being emotionally charged and terrified about what this proposition of war could mean is not ridiculous. Thinking that I am all alone in this, on the other hand is. Lovelace, a senior mass communication major, hails from Seymour, Texas.
Everybody
wants him, even the quiet ones
From human observation, I have concluded that we have not changed much since junior high, except for all this body hair. To back up my theory, I would like to note how the rules of attraction and dating haven’t changed since junior high. The one exception is if you are a complete meat-headed jerk. If you find yourself in this category don’t bother reading any further. First of all, how do we treat the people we are attracted to the most? We try to avoid them at all cost, that’s how. As guys, excluding meat-headed jerks of course, we really can’t say exactly what we want to say, which is “let’s get it on!” (Sorry guys, I had to let out the secret.) So to avoid embarrassment we just sit silently. It’s a trap because we can’t say what we want to say, so if we ever get the nerve to actually speak to a girl, by default we say something stupid like “I like stuff, how about you?” But for the most part this seems to work pretty well. There is a caliber of women that seem to fall for that type. I’m going to assume girls are the same way. I can’t make a clear conclusion because, well, I’ve never been a girl before. So, if we are both thinking the same thing, why can’t we just go up and get the deed done? I don’t know very many guys that would turn down a girl, unless she smelled like a dumpster. So, as I was saying, this is what I have concluded. All these girls out there who have never said a word to me are actually avoiding me because they are attracted to me. Everyone is secretly playing hard-to-get with everyone else. Sounds good enough, right? But of course, if a girl ever speaks to me, it gets me to thinking, “What’s the deal with this? This girl must really want me.” I think everyone out there can safely make these same assumptions. Now just think about all the people you always see but have never said a word to you. That hot, voluptuous girl with the legs up to her neck you always see walking through the student center. That studly hunk of man with the long curly locks you always see doing good deeds. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Of course, if you look around, people are talking and hooking up all over the place and that just ruins my theory. I can explain! Alcohol completely changes the rules. No matter what is coming out of your mouth it sounds cool to you. I could be completely wrong about all this. Maybe I’m the only one who hasn’t grown up since junior high. But just in case, to all you girls out there who have never said a word to me…I hear you. Rushin, a senior mass communication and computer science major, hails from Paducah, Texas.
Branded How does it feel being an advertisement? Let’s talk about people who proudly wear clothes emblazened with logos like Old Navy, Nike and Tommy Hilfiger. Such blatant displays have turned people into walking billboards. Americans, unfortunately, are label-conscious consumers who don’t mind being “branded” like cattle. According to AdAge.com, U.S. advertisers spent more than $45 billion last year in persuading the public on everything from which chicken sandwich tastes the best to what type of car will attract the most dates. Advertisers are willing to shell out big bucks to sell their products to you. So why do people pay retail stores top dollar for acting as walking advertisements for designers whose logos are plastered over their everyday apparel? If people want to show the world they’ve been to Disney World by wearing a shirt that says, “I’ve met the mouse,” that’s fine. But what about when the Walt Disney Company furnishes Target’s main line of spring clothing? One might say, choose another brand if you don’t like printed mice scurrying all over your shorts. A problem arises, though, because brand names are not limited to those itchy tags inside shirt collars anymore. Most likely, the clothes you find at Target are going to have Mossimo or another label stitched on the outside for everyone to read. The clothing companies have no reason to stop because it’s free advertising for them. But the consumer has little choice in the matter. Not everyone is trying to look like the trendy Abercrombie and Fitch hotties, but they may pay to wear their clothing because of a good deal, a good fit and/or a limited selection of “generic” clothing. Big corporations don’t shy away from spending millions of dollars each year when it comes to advertising. Old Navy clothing stores spent $110.5 million in advertising for 2001, according to corporate financial reports. The Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation spent $89.7 million in advertising last year. Levi’s apparel spent $72.1 million. What label a person wears reflects nothing about who they are. Does it mean they are members of an elite class if the red, white and blue Tommy Hilfiger logo appears on their shirtsleeve? No, because they could have purchased that shirt for $5 at the Salvation Army or maybe their grandmother gave it to them for Christmas. Clothes should never be seen as status symbols because they don’t always indicate status or preferences. So why isn’t the general public paid for wearing advertisements? Athletes get paid. Golf superstar Tiger Woods signed a $100-million-five-year contract with Nike to wear its logo. It can cost the average person up to $200 to buy a shirt with a Nike logo on it, so they can perform the same skill as Tiger—wearing a shirt. Celebrities don’t change the quality of the product; they just change its reputation. It is not fair for the non-celebrities. MSU is spending $48,000 on a new advertising campaign, including billboards and traveling vans. Shouldn’t they pay students who travel off campus wearing clothing with university logos? They are helping the university advertise for free. In a free society, it is a shame that not only are people forced to watch commercials, they are forced to take part in them. Alexis Stoddard, Managing Editor
Sincerely, The Bad Driver Charity Hutte
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