Don Riesett

I went to college on a football scholarship, though in all honesty it was more like a football coupon—a lot closer to 50 cents off than a free ride. Nonetheless, it did allow some self-indulgent chest thumping on my way out of high school. It also made me feel like Rutgers really wanted me—a feeling that was reinforced when I visited the university in the spring of my senior year in high school.

It was a magnificent April day and the Rutgers campus was buzzing. The entire student body seemed to be out and about, scurrying to lecture halls, throwing Frisbees, or just lying in the grass, textbooks functioning as headrests. Some of the professors had even succumbed and relocated their classes outside to the quad. Spring fever was rampant.
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Excerpted from an essay about schizophrenic ad agency relationships

Theatrically removing his credit card from its very own paper-thin but solid gold case, boldly embossed with indecipherable symbols, the dark, barrel-chested man with the thick, slicked-back hair and the shiny two thousand-dollar business suit posed a rhetorical question. “This piece of plastic?” Backlit by the room’s rain-swept, two-story, floor-to-ceiling windows, the Mediterranean fireplug paused to register a smug tight-lipped smile before answering himself. “I can buy a Rolls-Royce with this card.”
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