If you have paid attention at all to the goings-on around campus, then you may be aware that EIU-UPI members voted 97% in favor of authorizing a strike because of a dispute with salaries. 

Anyway, if you are an idiot like me, you barely understand the situation beyond the fact that money is the solution. Thankfully, I have seen enough TV shows that I think I can piece together a solid financial plan that will get Eastern back to its former glory of “a school I have heard of”. 

Here is the thing about money: it actually does grow on trees.  

I have conducted numerous experiments in the most recent “Animal Crossing” game and have determined that, without fail, putting money in the ground and watering it does in fact create a money tree.  

“If that is true, then why are we not we all billionaires right now, you moron?”, you ask, as you always do in my columns it seems. Let me answer that question with another question: When is the last time you planted money?  

It has probably been a while, right? You were likely 7 or 8 or 23 and did not really have the patience to sit around and wait for the money to sprout up.  

You probably had a social life and friends and loved ones who were constantly pulling you away from your budding tree and it withered and died before you saw any profits.  

I bet you did not think that, in addition to water and a steady supply of ammonia-rich fertilizer, that money trees also require love and attention. You likely did not think about that because you only think about yourself. Anyway, the solution to all our woes is money trees.  

And if we cannot muster the love required to make cartoon concepts come to life, I have yet another foolproof plan. 

Bottom line is this: we will liquidate the entirety of Eastern. Get rid of every building besides Coleman and Booth Library, throw all the books into the furnaces thus creating a self-sustaining heating system, and implement a “work study” program where outside contractors can hire a student workforce they then pay nothing to and instead send Eastern a kickback. 

It is that simple. Will I, your loyal advocate and friend, be receiving a cut of the profits? Of course I will, it was my idea after all! But fret not, I will be donating my ill-gotten gains to my favorite person: me. They have earned it.  

If, after all this, we still find ourselves struggling to pay professors the wages they deserve, I do have one final plan: just giving the teachers the goddamn pay raise.  

I mean, these people are highly educated and working at the highest levels of education and we have to meander and beat around the bush instead of just helping them out when they need it. 

Seriously, I do not get how the powers that be cannot realize that the professors at Eastern are incredibly intelligent and talented individuals and are more than worthy of getting paid more, especially in this quasi-post-COVID-19 world.  

Will Padgett is an English graduate student. He can be reached at wpadgett14@gmail.com or 217-581-2812.