On February 1st, 2020 Bwog Staffer Solomia Dzhaman lost her CUID. She has not been the same since.

Denial

It’s in your coat pocket. Or behind your credit card in your wallet. Maybe in the back pocket of your jeans…? Right…? There’s no way you could have lost your card. You followed all the rules, you stuck the Hartley hospitality sticker to your phone case, you checked your back pocket, there is no way.

Anger

This is stupid. Who decided that every campus building should be accessed with a piece of plastic. A thin, flimsy, nondescript piece of plastic, that somehow has the authority to confirm your identity to anybody who cares to ask. Who even invented scannable cards. They were stupid. This whole system is stupid, and maybe we should all just go back to using carrier pigeons.

Bargaining

You pray to Prezbo, to Prezbei, to your high school mascot, to that print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa on your wall. You promise, you pinky swear you’ll do every LitHum reading, turn in every Calc III assignment without copying, you’ll go to bed at 11:00pm sharp, and you’ll eat your greens. Please. Just please let this ID be in a coat pocket.

Depression

This is it. You’ve failed as a Columbia student. They trusted you to get a degree, but you’ve failed at even the simplest task: keeping track of your most important belonging. Time for you to give up and transfer to a community college like your mom always wanted you to. You could live at home. Your mom would cook you steamed carrots and chicken with absolutely no seasoning, you would fall asleep in your childhood bedroom, and wake up to the sounds of your old street. Slinking around your home, a shadow of your former self, you would eventually be completely consumed by shame and grief.

Acceptance

Wait a minute, why are you so stressed about a piece of plastic? You’re right, it doesn’t mean anything – you still have your UNI, and you still have yourself, the most important part of the equation! If you put your trust in Hartley Hospitality, you’ll make it out just fine – chances are a student picked your ID up and dropped it off there. Or maybe you dropped it in the dining hall, or at the library. The front desk has your back! And so does the rest of Columbia. Maybe it really isn’t that bad here, after all, maybe you don’t have to move out tomorrow. In the end, if worst comes to worst, you can always just get a new one!

Image via me