Just stick it to the freshmen

I can still recall my dismay as the bar of pure white Ivory soap slipped from my hands and sank into the perpetual puddle of bacteria-ridden water that called my shower entrance home. "Damn," I thought as I looked up only to notice the gaping hole where the ceiling had caved in, been fixed and then fallen down again. It was a skylight, I told my friends back home, neglecting to mention that there was no view of sky, but rather only the plumbing for the toilet above. I turned to grab my shampoo, came face to face with a strip of mold peeling from the tile, and stepped back. Into the puddle.

At that moment, I couldn't believe I'd actually paid for my confinement on Old Campus. I felt like a lab rat thrown into some bizarre experiment, being watched over to see how many health hazards I could endure before my inevitable demise. Lying in the small box otherwise known as my bedroom, I would try to envision all those forms I'd so haphazardly signed--but obviously never fully read--at the beginning of my Yale tenure. Had I missed some tacit agreement to fatal conditions?

Of course, I was merely a freshman then. My friends and I talked of calling Hard Copy to expose once and for all the filth in which we Yalies were forced to live. Then we called Janitorial Services and left a polite request on their machine: "Would you be so kind as to come and remove our ceiling from our floor?"

Year after year, Yale takes advantage of the incoming freshman class--the brand new Yalies so eager to belong, so willing to put up with such inexcusable conditions because, as we constantly reminded each other, "Who cares? We're at Yale!" These plebians are easy prey, and Yale has no qualms about charging freshmen the same amount for quarters that seem more like large closets as they do upperclassmen for huge two-bedroom suites.

I drank lead traces for a week before I finally realized something was terribly wrong. Each morning, I'd wander sleepy-eyed into the bathroom and, without turning on the light, I'd fill up my cup from the tap. It wasn't until I happened to glance into the glass one day that I noticed the plethora of little floating grey flecks. I poured my cup out and refilled it, but the grey specks remained. And they were still there the next day and the next week. I spent the next three months before Thanksgiving Break wondering if I dared wait until then to see a doctor.

And let's not forget my seventh suitemate. His name was Gregor. He lived in our bathroom, though sometimes he'd venture out into the hallway to pay us all a visit and have a few laughs. Yes, Gregor was a cockroach. Our suite was "Joe's Apartment" without the singing. And definitely without the humor.

I also found it rather strange how mysterious afflictions proliferated among our suite. I myself began to conduct static electricity. For three months I required other people to open doors for me, not wishing to be electrocuted for the umpteenth time. Then there was my left eye, which began to water so much that constantly dabbing it with a tissue became a necessity, and I had to carry around a tissue to dab it with, and people constantly gave me sympathetic looks, as if I'd just been crying. One of my suitemates developed a lump in her neck. She also found out she was iron deficient. Fortunately, there was no need to worry about a lack of lead in her daily intake.

It's amazing that Yale retains such a high percentage of freshmen. But, of course, the Administration isn't stupid. They know that by the time you finally realize that the homeless people selling flowers and begging for spare change on the streets sleep in only marginally worse conditions, you're off to your residential college and on to bigger and better things. Like rooms you can actually walk through. Shower walls you can accidently touch and not cringe. And, of course, ceilings.