Our generation is a technological one. We have been raised on and with computers and they have become as integral to our academic life as any book. The computer is a powerful tool. This is the kind of crap you tell your parents to convince them to buy you a computer.

If this hackneyed con hasn’t worked for you, read on, pay attention and learn how to convince your parents to buy you a computer or fail that, a really nice calculator. Oh and if you already have a computer, read it anyway, it’s mildly amusing.

So you tried the academic approach as described above. In fact, you probably came straight out of the gate with it. Did it work? I didn’t think so. You eloquently proclaimed the virtues of the computer age, even though many of the reasons college students prefer to have their own computers are disgusting and cannot be printed in a public forum. It would be ill-advised to express your neediness to mom and dad with a pie chart divided into porn, music sharing and music sharing porn.

If the scholarly angle didn’t work for you, try age regression. Mom always says that you are still her little baby. Shamelessly whine and beg. If this doesn’t work, your parents are heartless monsters and you are lucky they didn’t drown you in a bucket at birth. But keep trying, more specifically, try lying.

Lie about the state of the computer labs. Slyly explain that the lab is always full, the printer is always out of paper and that in the lab there lives a troll that forces you to solve riddles before allowing access to the Internet.

If the academic approach has not worked, tugging on the heart strings has not worked, and mom and dad saw through your pathetic lies, there is only one option left. Come hang out in the computer lab with me. I spend lots of time here and I have a really cool calculator we could play with.