The Unbearable Foulness of Being

So there I was, cloaked in eternal sleep, ascending ever and ever higher into a soft expanse of rolling blue sky. Suddenly, a sharp pain assaulted my head, shattering my left ear, exiting through my right, liquefying my senses, and paralyzing my body. I braced myself for the impact and shut my eyes, but the pain returned. This time it was more insistent and caused my eyes to open involuntarily. I looked up at the clouds and found myself ...

Awake, entangled by rancid sheets and covers, head atop not gossamer mist but a hard pillow, my immediate field of vision dominated by brutally white cinder blocks, my ears assaulted by the whir of the hated alarm. I smack the clock-it reads 8:30 a.m.-and extricate my body from the bed, hurriedly and clumsily lunging toward the bathroom. I have half an hour to wash off yesterday's grime, dry and clothe myself, pick up my copy of The History of the Peloponnesian War, and get to Hamilton Hall. It's the sort of impossibly monumental endeavor Thucydides would have revelled in.

But the bathroom door is closed. I pull on the doorknob but to no avail. One of my suitemates has compromised my opportunity!

"Is that you, CML?" he asks cheerfully. "I'll be out in a minute! I'm shaving." He resumes emitting hideously guttural noises that would indicate anything but that. Dressed in my pink nightshirt and boxers, I kill time by checking my e-mail, looking at Facebook, still looking for "Whatever I can get."

At last, my suitemate emerges from his tiled chrysalis, impeccably groomed and shaven. "All yours," he says. My key in hand, I jump toward salvation. The surface of the bathroom seems uncharacteristically soft upon my soles. I look down and see not gray tiles, but an infinite carpet of little, curly black hairs. They come in different shapes and sizes, but together, they tessellate the plane of tiles as perfectly as regular hexagons and triangles. I suppress my gag reflex, jump onto my still pristine flip-flops, and step into the abrasive concrete of the shower, shampoos exuding an awful smell, a film of dried soap about the drain. The cold water attacks my skin, and taking my hand-towel, I scrub with the fury of Achilles, the strength of Ajax, and the wisdom and foresight of the Delphic oracle. I am the Odysseus of showering, my corporeal manifestation and spirit purified completely and fastidiously.

Thirty minutes later, I emerge from my room. The lounge is littered with crushed chips, broken ceiling tiles glare down at me, and when the elevator arrives, it brings with it empty beer bottles, caps, and sticky brown puddles of vomit and liquor, detritus of the weekend's revelry. Soon I'm at the doors. My watch reads 9:10 a.m.; my punctilious punctuality has been punctured, my soul sorrowed. But it's all right. Everything is all right. I have won the victory over bad hygiene; I loved Crest, Head & Shoulders, and Tide. My teeth freed from plaque, hair rid of oil, self clad in recently washed vestments, cobwebs of sleep and squalor of college living conditions cast from my person, I stroll calmly toward Hamilton. It's time to begin my day.