The T.P. Squeeze

FRESHMAN YEAR, a few friends and I ventured out from our safe rooms in Holworthy over to Thayer on what would become the most important mission of our young Harvard careers: to steal all the toilet paper from the bathrooms in our rival dorm.

The men's bathrooms were no problem. We absconded with about six rolls from each hall. Thayer even had extra rolls on the sinks because everybody on one floor shared a bathroom. The women's rooms were slightly more difficult. But being brave and daring freshmen, we poked our heads in, ran in, stuffed as many rolls as possible into our knapsacks and walked out casually as if nothing had happened.

Our purpose was two-ply. First, we wanted to see what our colleagues in Thayer would do without any toilet paper in their bathrooms until Monday morning--when toilet paper hours began again in the North Yard. Second, and more important, we needed the toilet paper.

As we had private bathrooms in Holworthy, getting toilet paper meant waking up during toilet paper hours--they were about 3:30 to 3:35 p.m., as I remember--walking across the Yard to Mower and bargaining with a man who spoke little English to get a single roll.

"You want more, bring your roommates," he told me, suggesting that I should keep my own personal stock. I briefly thought about trading my toilet paper for the bottom bunk, but when my roommates started using comic books, I backed down.

Instead, I began wondering why Harvard is so stingy with its toilet paper. It's not expensive, is it? (Despite Harvard's stringent rationing of toilet paper, I have still never bought any on the open market).

It's not valuable, is it? Although to the people on my floor last year, who had wet toilet paper fights every night, a pristine roll might have been of inordinate value.

I thought I had escaped the problem sophomore year, when I moved into a single with a hall bathroom. Dorm crew came to clean our stalls every day, and though they always left a huge puddle right in front of the toilet, they never let us run out of toilet paper.

Of course, all was not happy in Mudville. Whenever I placed a roll in its holder--after debating for hours one end which way to hang it to prevent disease--I found that the toilet paper was too wide for its holder, or, more aptly named, its squeezer.

The fit was so tight that every time I pulled the roll down it would break, leaving me with a single tiny sheet in my hands. Being used to pulling the roll and letting the sheets fly until several yards of toilet paper was all over the ground, this was a disappointment.

I have found that the squeeze phenomenon is not unique to my sophomore year bathroom, which, as a result of renovations to Briggs Hall, no longer exists. The room was gone when I returned to Briggs this spring, but the toilet paper squeezer was still there. In fact, almost everywhere I go around Harvard, I find a t.p. squeezer.

Except for the Sackler Museum. The Sackler has an even more inventive way to prevent overwiping. Though no squeezer prevents the toilet paper from breaking as you pull it off the roll, a unique device prevents the roll from spinning around more than once. Instead of one sheet at a time, you get two.

I should be happy with twice the ration of tissues. But because I can't figure out how to take the roll out of the holder, I am conviced that Harvard's toilet paper exploits are an attempt to instill anal retentiveness in its students.

I will be the first to admit that I go to the bathroom too often for my own good, but Harvard's measures seem much too drastic. Next thing you know, they'll be putting in those single sheets of cellophane in their toilet holders like they do at cheap restaurants and gas stations.

Until then, I'll be carrying around my personal rolls.