Today is tax day, but I finished my taxes over two weeks ago, ha ha! Too bad I had to pay money, boo. But I guess that means the government wasn't using money of mine it didn't deserve to have interest-free in the meantime. Yay, I guess. There was a piece on the radio this morning about how the midnight crushes of tax procrastinators at post offices have thinned noticeably now that so many people are filing electronically. Reminds me a bit of how the college housing draw went electronic, the last year I was there.

Until my senior year, this was how housing lottery, aka The Draw, worked: you got your draw group of up to 8 people together, and took yourselves up to the student union at some point over the several days of Draw. After signing in, one of you reached into a large bin and picked out a little envelope with a little card inside that had a number on it from 1 to 3000 (guaranteed) or 3001 to 5000 (unguaranteed -- we got only three years guaranteed on-campus housing, then. Everybody can get all four years now). These numbers determined in what order you would get to pick where you lived the next year. Celebration or shrugging or deep funks ensued, as said number was irrevocably marked on your group's housing cards, where you had already written eight houses in order of your preference, and the cards were filed away to be tallied. It was high drama, I tell you; watching from line with sympathy or envy for your fellows was half the fun. Some people would do chants, or laying of hands upon the drawer for maximum mojo, or dress up in some sort of costume. I remember one group brought a little Buddha statue, to rub his tummy at the right moment. I forget whether it helped. You didn't find out where your number had finally put you until a few weeks later, when the word would suddenly flash through the halls that the housing lists were being posted in the dorm office, and you would push through the crowd to discover your next year's fate, taped to the glass of the windows.

Over the course of four years, you would draw three times. Jokes were made about the Ten Thousand Club, populated by unlucky souls who managed to draw near the bottom of the barrel each time, to be relegated to the '50s cinderblock prisons of east campus, or even to the mobile home trailer park (I kid you not) which had been installed as "temporary" housing around the time we were born. The 10,000 Club refers to the maximum possible draw total that a person could have over the three years: 3000 + 3000 + 5000 = 11,000.

My score: 10,222.

I always ended up liking the places I landed with those draws, though. Senior year, my "unguaranteed" year, I lucked into an open spot in a nice middle-demand house a matter of weeks before classes started, and in the other cases the people I lived with far outshone the mild cinderblockiness of the buildings. So it was all good.

My God, the rambling. I've got my ten-year college reunion this year (...my WHAT?!...), please excuse me. Anyway, my point was, starting with the Draw that happened the spring of my senior year (meaning I wasn't actually in it, but watching others), they computerized it. No more lining up at the union to draw little envelopes. Instead, you signed up and entered in the members of your group and your eight ranked choices for housing, and hit "submit." No more audience, no more drama, nothing to physically grab onto. I was glad I'd been in on the Old Way.

I much prefer electronic tax filing though. Much easier. Does the math for me, asks me yes or no questions, gives me little FAQ answers, all good.

No, there's not much coherence here, why do you ask?

contents of the purple tricycle are copyright 2004 carrie lynn king unless otherwise noted.