A Delicate Ecosystem

THE ISRAELITES HAD to cross the Red Sea. Columbus had to sail the ocean blue. And I, much less glamorously, have to muck my way through Lake Stoughton every time I take a shower.

Perhaps as a high school student I fell prey to the myth of the collegiate paradise that is supposed to be Harvard. I equated Ivy League elitism with organizational expertise. Little did I know that Harvard spends minute amounts of its vast multi-billion dollar endowment to deal with the very simple, yet very pressing problem--especially for those of us who share our shower with more than five other people--of shower scum.

Try to paint the following picture in your mind: insects roaming through a puddle of green slime at the foot of my shower.

Not very pleasant for students? Now try to picture this: a talented, young, first-year student eaten alive by the hungry insects lurking in his bathroom.

Not very pleasant for the administration?

THE WHOLE PROBLEM of my shower scum rests on the very delicate eco-system that exists in the dormitories at Harvard--many of which were built before the advent of indoor plumbing.

Despite the presence of the standard lime-green army surplus shower curtains we all have, there is always a rather large, cold, deep, slimy, bacteria-ridden puddle in front of my shower. It's rather gross, to say the least. However, unlike Moses and his pals, there's no deity around to part the waters for me.

Every day, as I wade my way across Lake Stoughton in my pre-chem, semi-conscious state, I am reminded by a horde of hungry, humming arthropods that the bathroom is essentially its very own biosphere--in which we poor humans are at the bottom of the food chain.

Some may ask themselves, "Why have I paid $23,000 for the cockroach scene from 'Temple of Doom?'" I, however, look at the situation as an opportunity to put what I've been taught these past few weeks into practice.

For example, in the spirit of Historical Study A-12, I've tried to establish peace treaties with the various factions (millipedes, moths and flies-oh my!) in order to set up a relatively peaceful balance of power. Case in point: if the "fishermen" of the lake agree not to include me in their breakfast hunt, I promise not to flatten any more of them. Unfortunately, we seem to lack a common means of communication, and our conflicts continue.

Perhaps I could solve it by closing the window. But if I did that, my bathroom, already quite humid, would become a hot-house, and whatever population that may be in there now would grow exponentially, until a vast swarm would gather and ooze out, eating everything in its path.

So we maintain an uneasy peace. They take an occasional chunk out of me while I'm in the shower, and I in return do my best to bludgeon them out of existence.

I'VE BEEN TRANSFORMED from a polite, mild-mannered teenager into a cold-blooded, sadistic murderer. It's brutal, I know, but after a while, one gets accustomed to playing God with the lives of these creatures. I think it's having an adverse effect on me.

I've become twisted at times, my personality has split and I now demand that people call me Zeus. Yes, that's right. I came to Harvard thinking that I would grow up to become some sort of biologist, and instead, I have emerged as chief deity of the Greek pantheon, all because of my twisted desire to wreak vengeance on the vermin that feast on me, my friends and my food (in the case of the mice).

Actually, I tend to alternate between the violent and the peaceful. Sometimes when I'm in a mellow mood, I like to think that perhaps I'm communing with nature every time I answer her call. If you can't tell, a few measly bugs in the bathroom is not a good thing for a neurotic disease-fearing/Woody Allen-type hypochondriac like me.

I mean, I'm not sqeamish. Maybe it's sort of a guilt thing. I've always felt bad for bugs. Always stepped on--be it by me or someone else--always feared just because they're all pretty damn ugly.

Maybe it is my penance to be buzz-bombed by giant flies while trying innocently to brush my teeth. In AP Bio last year, I had to kill thousands of fruit flies all in the name of science. We used to dump them, along with the blue medium they lived in, into this jar of alcohol called the morgue. Their spirits have come back to haunt me.

Modernization always has its casualties. Harvard, in its sprit of progressive thought and intellectual advances, has neglected one key spot in its march toward the future. Our bathrooms.

Jonathan A. Bresman '95 and his evil twin, Zeus, are planning to shower every morning in Mass Hall.

I might get eaten alive by the insects floating in my shower scum.

I didn't know college could be so dangerous.