At my school, there is a “Milk and Cookies” club.
Our school offers money to students to begin clubs. I assume there is a bunch of bureaucracy that the students have to go through to justify the existence of the club, but once they do, they have a budget of one thousand dollars with which to run their newly founded club.
When I heard of the Milk and Cookies club, about two years ago, I thought it was a great idea. I met the characters in charge of it. I was glad that people were around like them to poke at the school and the things they were doing. I don’t know how they justified a milk and cookies club, but I liked that these guys did it, and were getting funded by the university for it.
Over the past two years, I haven’t been so involved with the events at my school. A move to Brooklyn and finding a community of people outside the school separated me a bit from all that. However, this past Monday, I was making a visit to one of the school buildings and talking to some friends I haven’t seen in a while, when Mr. MilkandCookies shows up. He starts talking about how he was trying to get sponsorship for the Milk and Cookies club to hold some cookie eating contest, and how he had to prepare someone else to take over the club after he graduates this semester. He needed someone that would still be willing to “take advantage of the system.”
Knowing that this guy was doing work (granted, probably not much) just to “take advantage” of what was being offered to him was kind of upsetting. Especially since there are plenty of highly productive things he could be doing. I’m surprised it took me two years of being outside of school to realize that doing things just for its “ironic” qualities is ineffective.