Prestige and Mobility: A Real Deal Tour for Junior Parents

And we’re moving.

Welcome, junior parents, to Prestige and Mobility’s Alternative Tour of Harvard, the no-holds-barred, kick-you-in-the-groin, leave-you-sterile-where-you-stand, give-you-expired-coupons look at the seedy, “unofficial” side of Harvard. You know, the side you see when Professor Greg Mankiw wears those “pants.” Before we begin, congratulations on siring America’s best and brightest, who will all go on to be president—even the girls.

We start here at the John Harvard statue. Now, it is a famous Harvard undergraduate tradition to pee on the statue. I say, why stop there? Hell, Christian B. Flow ’10 has been looking for a hole in this thing for years. They call this the statue of Harvard’s three lies. Can anyone name them?—Hey, pay attention! No need to look at the chaches in the straw hats, shouting and making bad jokes. They think they’re earning vacations in the Caribbean, but they’re really just offering lousy and obnoxious guided visits that aren’t as good as the free tours—Well, the three lies are, first, there aren’t just three lies. Second, your friends from Dorm Crew will clean your bathroom every two weeks. Three, you will “take advantage of” Boston all the time. Ol’ Beantown! So many other fun cool teens. What a city. Ol’ Beantown! Four, of course you’ll get a job. You’re the most elite students in the country. Five, the girls here are smoke shows. The cat’s pajamas. Six, you will learn to love having seasons. It’s only cold a few months a year. Seven, yeah, we always have grass in the Yard. Who wants to play some Ultimate?! Eight, your parents’ love is unconditional.

Gazing around the Yard, you can see the many freshman dorms. During the 1960s, social mores shot out the door, and a bonanza of homemade pornography films exploded onto the Yard. Adult video shops are still jam-packed—at least I’m told—with titles like, “Mass Hall: Girls Gone Relatively Wild,” “How Much Are Your Wigglesworth?,” “Green-hos,” “Pennypacker? I Hardly Know Her,” and “Cower at the Tower of Sexual Power as They Plow Her in Mower in Under an Hour, Narrated by Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Surprisingly, Hurlbut, Widener, and Pusey remained untouched.

And we’re moving.

To your right, you will see the Harvard College Women’s Center. Along with the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Delphic basement, this facility continues a long tradition of keeping women underground and safe from nuclear fallout.

And we’re moving.

Did someone have a question in the back? No, those building are not public housing projects, but in fact Canaday, a freshman dorm and home of the “Canaday renaissance,” a movement expressed primarily through Top 40 hip-hop and some seriously awesome pong. I mean, seriously. Seriously, man, you don’t even know.

And we’re moving

If you saw this monstrosity, called the Science Center, and thought, “What the hell? That doesn’t look anything like a camera! All I see is a bunch of mediocre girls with rolling backpacks,” then you’d be right.

To your right, you can see William James Hall, site of the famous Registrarian Monkey Revolt. Proclaiming himself Maestro de Los Monos, Titan of the Tamarins, Oligarch of the Orangutans, Champion of the Chimps, Liberator of the Lemurs, First Secretary of the Democratic Worker Monkeys Popular Banana Front, and Guardian of the CUE, Registrar Barry S. Kane marched on the building and stabbed several security guards with a letter opener, which was marked with the monogram “DGF.” He then released all of the monkeys and led them, as the Pied Piper of Primates, into University Hall. Thus was born the new Harvard calendar.

If you continue down Oxford Street, you will see two of Harvard’s most famous landmarks. Farthest away, you will find Northwest Labs, the inspiration for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” On the first Tuesday after the second Monday after the lunar equinox, the massive basement becomes an underground roller derby arena and home of human sacrifice. [1]

Slightly closer, one finds the Peabody Museum, home to some excellent exhibits of roma bones. Many visitors remark, “Those are a lot of gypsy bones, but they can’t possibly account for the number of gypsies killed during the construction of CGIS by Our Queen Drew Faust.” That would be astute. Those are only the gypsy elites, accordion players, queens, and humor columnists. The mass graves are beneath the Quad.

And we’re moving.

Finally, feel free to tip us in cash, war bonds, wampum, or your daughter’s phone number. What? Your daughter’s only 14? I’ll settle for her screen name. Oh, come on. At least give me her Xanga page.



[1] Why do you think those couches are red? If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.