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A Box Full of Three-Ring Binders and The Mysterious Bruise

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Q: “I have a whole box full of three-ring binders that I no longer need. They were useful last year, but they fail to serve their purpose now. What do I do?”
– Binding Nothing

A: Binding Nothing, you have an interesting dilemma. The tree-hugger in me is bursting to tell you to recycle! The cardboard that keeps the plastic together, and the rings in the binder are perfect candidates for the “recycle” part of that catchy jingle. Of course, you can always “reuse” the binders as other objects. Take the cardboard rectangles, for example. Say you had to wake up on a chilly, frost-biting day for a language class at eight in the morning. You grudgingly go to class and come back famished and wanting hot soup and noodles in your stomach.
Of course, what will you think of first? Good ol’ original Ramen. Now, most people don’t know that Ramen noodles taste so much better coming from the pot they were cooked in. Therefore, eating straight out of the pot is muy delicioso. In this sticky situation, you would need a buffering pad between the hot pot and the table so you don’t melt the table. By saving the cardboard rectangles that make up the binder, you can use the cardboard as buffering pads so that you may enjoy your delicious meal and feel good about not destroying the earth with more trash. Or … you can just toss ‘em.

Q: I have this mysterious bruise on my right thigh. I have no idea how I got it. Any chance you would know?
– Bruised.

A: Well, Bruised, the answer could be simple or complicated. The simple answer could be that while you were walking into your bedroom, you caught your little sister staring intently at a worn, faux-leather, book-like notebook that you found curiously comforting. Of course, after a half-second of eternity, you recognized that specific pages were dog-eared and especially crinkled (yes, you have a diary). After realizing the dog-eared pages were those of your past romantic exploits, you realize that you must run around the room after her, blinded by embarrassment and familial rage.
In half a moment, did you realize that your amplifier for the electric guitar that you received last Christmas was, oddly, smack-dab in the middle of your room? Without a second glance, did you ram your thigh into its black, hard meshes, breaking a vein in your then-healthy thigh? Due to the raised adrenaline while chasing your sister out of the room, you did not notice the bruise until it was too late—it had evolved into a purplish, blue hue that seemed to be a multi-cellular organism of its own.
The complicated answer would be that you became over-zealous using the drumsticks that Grams gave you for your last birthday while rockin’ out to Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.” Of course, how you would get a bruise from two measly pieces of wood is beyond me.

Grace Chung is a third year international studies major. Her advice does not represent the views of the New University. She can be contacted at GEChung@uci.edu