An Open Letter to the Dorm Card Reader that Made Me Swipe More Than Once

Dear Card Swipe Reader, Let me start off by saying I know it’s your job to protect me and the other people I share this hall with. But how dare you? I am my own person and I need to be able to make my own mistakes, like creating too many comma splices and harboring a desire to make all my personal issues public. Maybe I swiped too fast, but that’s just a reflection of the person I am, and it’s not your place to slow me down. I’m just trying to learn everything on my own, and I don’t need your judgement. I trusted you, and now I don’t know if I will be able to trust again.

Yesterday, you made me swipe five times when Jeremy, who texted me after we met at Encore and said I was “beautiful” and he would “be about it sometime,” was LITERALLY right behind me. I doubt he is “about it” anymore, thanks to you, card swipe reader. At first I thought maybe I shouldn’t take this personally, but then I saw Janet, that bitch who started texting Jeremy even though I mentioned I knew him, get in on the first swipe. I feel personally victimized by you, card swipe reader. But sometimes, and I really mean just sometimes, it’s not even about me.

I empathize, yes, empathize, a term you might not be familiar with based on how you treat me, with the others who are forced to swipe again. I can put myself in their shoes and I can imagine the hardship they go through when they have to swipe twice. It’s humiliating and it’s unfair, and we deserve better, and I think, deep down, you know that. The sweetest revenge is knowing that, as an exercise science major, I will move on to a high paying job that means something to the world, but you, card swipe reader, will always just be a card swipe reader and nothing more.

I know this letter may seem harsh, and I know it may seem like it was written by a toddler who has just been introduced to the English language, but thanks to the existence of websites where anyone can submit whatever they want and call it getting published, I can take all of my small inconveniences and project them to a large audience with the guaranteed result of undeserved sympathy, regardless of how devoid my words are of any real substance. Thank you for your time, card swipe reader, and kindly, go fuck yourself :)

Sincerely,

The Best Thing You'll Never Have