However, my laughter stops when I remember that he, and all those other wackos, WERE ELECTED. By a majority of voters. Supposedly American voters. It’s fun to ridicule this wackiness, until you realize just how wide spread the insanity really is. It doesn’t make me feel warm and cozy thinking about that.

WTF happened to our country? Doesn’t anyone have a friggin brain anymore?

Just on a whim, I asked the publisher if they could bundle a graphing calculator with the custom text. They checked, and said, “Sure. We sell TI-84s out of the math group bundled with Algebra texts.” So, the prices come in, and our bookstore (run by a famous name we’d all recognize as belonging on dairy farm) said, “Cost to students for the package will be $235.” That’s a 45% markup, and $5 more than the text and calculator bought separately from the bookstore.

So I called the publisher, thanked them for their efforts but said the bundling thing wasn’t going to fly. The editor said, “Wait a sec. We’ll sell the bundle to your students who are willing to buy on line, 20% markup.”

I called the bookstore text manager back and told her, “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to send all my registered students an e-mail next week with the ISBNs for the custom text, the e-book version of the whole textbook, and the calculator bundle. I’ll tell them they have to have a TI-83/4 calculator, and I don’t care where they get it. I’ll also tell them where they can get the bundle. By the way, the publisher is selling the bundle at a 20% markup.”

There was silence on the line. Then, “Well, that is your right.”

“Yes, it is. Do you still need a 45% markup on the bundle, but a 20% markup on the text itself?”

“Yes, we do. That’s Corporate policy.”

“Thanks very much.”