A Freshman Guide to Recovering the $6,000 You Lost in That Investment

Alright, calm down. So what, it happens to everyone. You stole 6K from your parents to invest in your Bobb floormate's sick new multi-media company. It made sense at the time, I mean who wouldn’t want in on “basically Spotify but for boats.” But regardless, Boatify is no more, and now it’s time to get back to business. If there’s one mistake freshmen make, it’s over-thinking. Just take a deep breath and look at the situation objectively: you’re $6,000 in the hole, the guy you lent it to is missing (in my experience they’re usually dead), and because you signed all the papers for this deal, you’re in with some pretty bad guys. The first thing you’re going to want to do is tell someone. Don’t. I’ve seen too many naive first-years make that mistake. Bottle this up and don’t even think about telling anyone, especially your parents. These bad guys--let’s just call them “The Cartel,” for the sake of brevity, the soul of wit--are demanding money, and they’re going to you first, obviously. The first order of business is to start raising money. I give it three to seven days before one of The Cartel members somehow slips past the sleeping Bobb security guard and makes it to your room. At this point, you have a couple of options.

Number One: Start a GoFundMe. Make up some fake story about a sick relative who needs surgery or some homeless man that your club is going to buy a laptop for. This part is not so important, as literally everyone’s GoFundMe page meets the goal, even you silly freshmen.

Number Two: Sign up for a Mono study. This one is much less dependable, and I suggest you also make the GoFundMe. Unless you’ve been previously diagnosed with mononucleosis, you’ll have to contract it, which will require some diligence and drinking out of strangers' cups. Once this is done, you’ve probably collected around three-thousand dollars.

Number Three: The final step is to convert this capital to cash, put it in an envelope on your bed, and then change your name and transfer to a West Coast school. I’m not saying that The Cartel is The Cartel, but they are, and they will find you. You shouldn’t have trusted the guy from B317. Never trust the guy from B317.