Item 1: Confusingly Inspirational Water Bottle

My first glimpse of this water bottle was of the phrase “Life in Balance is Harmony,” and my opinion of it was of general ambivalence: an otherwise undistinctive water bottle, I decided, was as good a vessel as any on which to slap an abstract aphorism with inconsistent font choice. I took minimal issue with the capitalization, as any copy editor worth their salt will capitalize “is” when it appears in a titular phrase, but whether the phrase is a title at all is far from certain: titles are rarely complete sentences, and moreover, who titles their water bottle? Already out of my depth, I was plunged to Vernian levels of submersion by the lettering adorning the bottle’s other side. My confidence was obliterated on issues I’d never thought to ponder, such as whether it’s customary to play tennis in meadows, if meadow tennis might be some unconventional variation played only at select resorts, and how resort staff would determine if a given meadow was harmonious enough to serve as a tennis court. So caught up was I in these greatly important philosophical quandaries that I nearly missed the faint, unreasonably curlicued green M in the logo. I wouldn’t discount the possibility of this water bottle possessing further secrets beyond my muddled, mystified powers of observation.

Item 2: Confusingly Inspirational Tote Bag

The design of this bag falls short of its designers’ ideals: the fusion of the O and K turns the letters into an illegible hieroglyph interpretable as a fish or perhaps an unfinished pretzel, and one feels thrown off by the sans-serif straightforwardness of the word “Seattle,” from which is completely missing any kind of distortion or overlap. Not to be outdone, the off-putting capital E’s of “evoke” resemble nothing so much as a book, seen from below, with an unconscionably wide spine and only one page—a painfully fitting metaphor for the ambition that must have been present at the outset of the design process, compared to the dismal failure of the execution. I was moved, at first, by the exhortation to evoke uproar, until I took in the rest of the message and realized that the range of time in which the bag was encouraging me to do so had long since passed. Sails limp and spirits structurally unsound, I walked away feeling empty inside, though I may at least console myself with the knowledge that the bag does not share the sensation.

Item 3: Assortment of Socks

These socks, which I regret to report I did not come across arranged as they are in the photo, are all folded, and as such most likely clean, which is a relief in terms of hygiene, but additionally indicates that these socks arrived on campus by some mode of portation other than a person’s feet, inspiring a plethora of questions for the hosiery’s owners. What unfortunate circumstance are you preparing yourself for by bringing a change of socks to school (assuming you are already wearing socks on your feet in this scenario, which ought to seem a safe bet in January, but one never knows)? If these socks were intended for athletic usage once classes concluded, how were you carrying them such that you managed to lose the socks but keep track of the rest of your equipment? I fear that the evident skyrocket of irresponsible sock habits may be a greater threat to society at large than anyone has foreseen (excepting myself, as I’m currently foreseeing it), and a harbinger of a bleak, barefoot future.