so my little lark (“i think i’m going to take shop class! this will be awesome! and, ooh, only $72 a credit hour!”) is turning out to be more expensive than i had anticipated.

first of all, yes, it is $72 per credit hour for four credit hours — $288. plus a $50 student activity fee. plus a lab fee which was not disclosed in the course catalogue or even at the time of registration; just when they rang me up for $400. sadly, i am meek as like unto a mouse and didn’t say “hey, wait” like a normal person would; i just handed over the debit card. so i still don’t know exactly how much the lab fees are. but evidently they are $(400 – 50 – 4 x 72). at least it should be noted that the lab fees pay for not one but two pairs of safety eyewear — one traditional “high school chemistry” elastic-band pair and one more traditional glasses-like pair (not entirely dissimilar to the pair i use when working with lye). also included was the free advice to keep said eyewear in an old sock to keep it from getting scratched up, so that’s helpful.

then there’s the textbooks. god bless the textbook publishing industry and the college textbook store industry, for they are raking in the cash. $110 for text and lab shop manual.

then it turns out that we have to buy uniforms. we are not allowed in the shop without work apparel. and we cannot just wear t-shirts and jeans like ordinary grease monkeys in training; no, this is a professional program and we have to dress and act the part. so i bought work pants in a stylish polyester/cotton permanent press blend ($20) and belt ($15 on sale), plus a cotton work-shirt ($14). with not insignificant regret, i had to pass on the custom embroidered name tag ($6) due to time constraints, since those take an extra 12-14 days to ship and dude, i want to get in the shop. then throw in a nice pair of electrical hazard, oil- and alkali-proof, slip resistant hard toe (not steel toe; i do not want any steel toes cutting my actual toes off, thank you very much) boots ($95).

so now we are up to, what — $654? a far cry from the just-under $300 i had first anticipated (okay, yes, i forgot about the expense of textbooks). this class had better rock hard on toast, i tell you what.