BERKELEY, Calif. — Julia White, a freshman living at Clark Kerr who recently ran out of flex dollars, reported that, for the first time in her life, she truly understands what it is like to live in poverty.
“When I posted pictures of my service trip to Senegal I thought I wholly understood the incredible hardship that comes when you don’t have your dad paying for anything. I couldn’t have been more wrong,” Julia said with a whimper as she held back tears. “To cope with stress, I’ve been going to Pete’s and buying Chai Lattes every day with my flex dollars. Because I don’t want my friends to call me fat, even though to be honest I’m naturally slender, I’m on the Blue meal plan. I couldn’t believe it when my Cal ID got declined when I went to buy the new pumpkin latte they were offering. I had to use the credit card tied to my parent’s bank account that I normally save for drugs and clothes. It was heart-wrenching. I was a dollar short for the drink, and now finally truly understand what the UN commercials meant when they say a dollar could save starving children’s lives.”
Jessica, Julia’s hall mate who has recently become Julia’s best friend, further elaborated on how running out of flex dollars has changed Julia’s life.
“They say Berkeley is a radical place, and I think Julia’s story is proof that it really is. After she got a septum piercing and ran out of her allowance she became a total Marxist. Every day she bashes the capitalistic structure of America and begs me to share my Juul with her as a way to resist the Lockean system of private property.”
After bombing the Math 1A midterm, Julia was overheard invoking Mario Savios’s name in a speech to her fellow comrades that advocated for the abolition of individual notes.