After 131 years of issuing rebates in the form of checks to student customers, the Coop recently started doing instant discounts on all purchases. Since its decision, the store, with its little known and little advertised Harvard affiliation, has received mixed reviews about the change.

 

“Anyone majoring in the social sciences, or the hard sciences, or any concentration that the Crimson editorial staff claims is worth doing says the change is convenient and simple,” said owner and proprietor Bradly Coop. “But with the humanities kids…well they have certain ‘feelings’ about it.”

 

Many history, literature, and language concentrators made statements on Tuesday about how the yearly checks for $3-$6 felt like their “first and only paychecks.” And while they knew the money didn’t represent any real economic gain, it was how they perceived it that counted.

 

“It’s a little like how Faulkner focalizes his novels to only his characters’ perspectives. It’s phenomenological, in some sense. In our minds, this was the money we made to last us through our next purchase of glasses with big rims, not just some discount,” said Rick Meyer ’14, an English concentrator. “The change means meaninglessness in both the Coop and our concentrations—it’s far too postmodern.” 

 

The rest of the student body, however, saw things a bit differently.

“Hahahahaha,” said economics concentrator Nick Wheel ’16 from the safety and warmth of his Barbour jacket, when asked to comment on the way to a finance meeting.