Everywhere you go in this day and age, it seems like somebody is trying to sell you something. The methods in which marketers go about promoting their goods and services have become increasingly intrusive in our everyday lives.

Where the audacious tactics of marketers were once exclusive to telemarketing, their campaigns have now become pervasive. We are now also inundated by junk mail via the Internet, instant messaging and postal service. Each week we speciously win a free trip to Bermuda or are bombarded with e-mails urging us to buy discounted Viagra from an Internet online M.D.

I’m confident that most of you share the sentiment: ‘I just want to be left alone, free from the hassle of incessant solicitation.’ If I urgently need to buy something, I’ll find a way to buy it on my own. I appreciate their concern for my obvious need to take a vacation, and I am equally gracious for their concern but mis-assumption that I need copious amounts of Viagra.

Unfortunately, this virile advertising epidemic has infected the SUNY-Binghamton campus. Walking to class has become a strategic game of maintaining space between you and ‘that guy’ distributing flyers. I offer a few survival suggestions in this situation.

If you are unable to circumvent the marketers, do not, I repeat DO NOT, make eye contact with them. This might suggest you’re at least semi-interested in what they are offering, and they will hound you relentlessly in the effort to close the deal. The best advice I can offer is to assume a running back stance, hand defensively stiff and poised from all the adulterated Viagra you bought online, and run headlong through the marketer’s vicinity. He will probably shadow you, but do not be alarmed. Once you’ve gained enough yards on him, he will become demoralized and surrender his pursuit. Once this has happened, you may safely turn around and taunt them with a well-choreographed victory dance. It’s obnoxious, but satisfying.

Do not get too excited yet, for this is not the end of your encounter. By printing out several thousand copies of his message on neon pink papers, the marketer has nonetheless cleverly insured that you will still see his flier. These small rectangular abominations are littered all across campus and are truly an eyesore. This promotional litter, with its heinously bright colors and ostentatious designs, is an unsettling contrast to the backdrop of pure white snow. The mess stays for weeks on end, long after the date of relevance. I would caution you not to stare at them directly, as I have been warned that they can severely damage your retinas.

So please, if you’re one of these people I’ve mentioned above, try and be a little more courteous. There is a plethora of other ways for you to get your message around without the annoyance that accompanies fliers and getting in peoples’ faces. Word of mouth, Facebook messages and making phone calls to your friends are even more effective, because they rely upon cooperative discourse rather than a regimen of forced feeding.

‘ Brandon Stephens is freshman English major. From now on, he will be passing out new issues of Pipe Dream at the New Union Tuesdays and Fridays while singing tunes from the hit movie ‘Newsies.’ Please take one, because if you don’t he’ll follow you to your classes.