The safest four years of your life

Like most Yalies, there are few things I enjoy more than relaxing out in a courtyard on a Saturday afternoon and perusing the Undergraduate Regulations pamphlet. I'd like to take the time to revisit some of the highlights you may have forgotten while studying avidly for midterms.

One thing you may learn about Yale when you reread the regulations is that our university is very worried that careless students might unwittingly cause a fire. To combat this, items such as halogen lamps, firecrackers, kerosene, and nitroglycerine, etc. have all been prohibited. So has your Van Gogh poster or any other "wall hangings over four square feet in size" since these are infernos waiting to happen. The Yale College Executive Committee also realized that students must be urged against having more than 12 square feet of cork on their walls. It wasn't long ago that an epidemic of monstrous cork board displays swept our lovely campus, only to be rectified by this explicit warning.

Yale is also very protective of its own property. To preserve these hallowed walls all "nails, screws, pins, tacks, paste" have been prohibited. The passing decades must have rendered Yale fragile since even tape "may not be used on any Yale property." I don't know what the fine is for taping a message on my door, and I'm afraid to find out. What really disturbs me is that all these restrictions make it very difficult for me to put up my 11 1/2 legal square feet of cork.

The most fascinating section of the Undergraduate Regulations is, of course, its rules on "Private Social Functions" [read: parties]. The Executive Committee has high standards for what it wants from a Yale party. Following the rules and regulations, an acceptable party would look something like this: Your friendly host is at the door tallying the number of people who enter and exit, making sure all the while that his private social function does not exceed the chaotic limit of fifty persons. The bar, which is "well-illuminated," is attended by Sylvia, your friendly dining hall worker whose services you secured a week before the event. She is chatting idly with Hank, the off-duty University police officer required to maintain order and make sure that Sylvia checks the fake ID's of each and every student. Many of the guests are enjoying the delicious apple juice which your host has provided in equal amounts to the screwdrivers that Sylvia is pouring for everyone. Thankfully, food "of sufficient quality and in adequate amounts" has been provided. As any decent, civilized person knows, a party without pretzels couldn't possibly make the necessary "positive contribution" and is wholly unacceptable.

As the night progresses your host makes an error in his addition and is shocked to discover that his social function has exceeded 50 people, and the situation is critically dangerous. Having read the regulations thoroughly, he realizes his obligation to "telephone the University Police at once." The police will then likely send in reinforcements to help Hank control the rambunctious crowd when the apple juice runs out. At precisely one a.m. the music is turned off and dozens of Yalies enjoy a nice, silent campus as they walk peacefully home.

You see, we have been given these rules for a reason. Yale must save us from the perils of nails and dimly-illuminated bars--otherwise our lives would be dangerous, chaotic and unbearable. They are saving us from ourselves. A Yale without each and every one of its well-thought-out regulations would be a modern-day Sodom on the verge of self destruction (perhaps by fire). Ex Comm needs to make sure the regulations are enforced at all costs.

I'm not sure why Oliver Stone never graduated from Yale, but I hear that he goes crazy with the tape.

Kevin Birmingham is a sophomore in Branford.

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