End to the junta

There used to be some rumors in Babı Ali.

They would say, “Journalists use their columns for their own interests.”

It was said that if there was a problem with a product they bought, or if the tea they drank at a cafe was served cold, they would scare the tradesman with the threat of “I’ll write about it in my column, you know,” and get a “discount,” and occasionally they would pose as gourmets to eat and drink for free in exchange for praise.

They even say some used it to “pick up girls.”

I’m just repeating what they say.

Now that I have a column of my own, let me give it a try.

No, not to pick up girls or to eat and drink for free.

But to see if I can lower my son’s private school tuition!!

They called from the administration the other day, and for next year’s tuition, they took me into a “pressurized gas chamber” early on.

Into a room of happiness filled with ozone and oxygen,

Like “Las Vegas Casinos,”

Not that I’ve been to Las Vegas, but that’s the impression I got from what I’ve watched and read.

After talking about the economic situation, low salaries, and some pleasantries, we got down to the brass tacks.

When the headmistress said they would raise the school tuition by “66 percent,” I was “so happy, so happy” I can’t even tell you.

As soon as I multiplied the fee I paid last year by 66 percent and added it up, the fact that it was an amount I could afford pleased me immensely.

I thanked her very much.

However, when I went to the accounting department, I saw that the raise was not 66 percent, but much more.

I asked, didn’t you say the raise was 66 percent?

The accountant said, yes, 66 percent.

How is it 66 percent!!!!!

This is clearly 166 percent.

No, sir, she said.

Only the raise on the “Tuition Fee” is 66 percent.

The rest and the other gouging are “General Expenses,” she said.

As far as I know, general expenses are usually 5-10 percent.

I asked if there was a breakdown of the expenses, I wish I hadn’t asked,

Her eyebrows suddenly turned into a “Janissary Sword.”

What I understood is that the General Expenses here were calculated as twice the tuition and meal fees.

The hidden price hikes we used to get away with by using “neighbor shuttle services” last year appeared before us this year as a “General Expense Gouge.”

And there is no escape anymore.

Anyway, it was for the best,

My education expenses have now dropped to almost zero.

Just like the saying “A bad landlord makes the tenant a homeowner,” we have also been saved from the “Private School Junta” that gives inflated grades, where you don’t get what you pay for, and where teachers are worked like slaves for poverty wages, SOLELY FOR PROFIT.

Off to public school we go.