HIJINX ENSUE: Trysting In The Wind

I’m afraid that the events of this week have left me no choice but to write about the Guest Policy. Now before you turn away in droves, with cries of, “I’m sick of hearing about the Guest Policy,” and “Everything that can be said has been said,” or “Why don’t you take some drugs and write in the second person? Now that’s a good column!” I must implore you to keep reading. I have an opinion and a perspective on this issue that I don’t think has been addressed yet.

You see, ever since Chancellor Silber launched his Ming the Merciless-style diatribe on Monday (Fornication is outlawed! Resistors will be crushed!), it seems like every letter I read from outraged students seems to say something like, “We don’t want the Guest Policy changed so we can have all sorts of sex. We just want to be treated like reasonable adults.” Well, my young friends, that’s all fine and well, but I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. I do want the Guest Policy changed so I can have all sorts of sex.

Now, the thought of me having sex might not be very appealing to you. Heck, sometimes it creeps me out a little bit. But the fact is I’m well within my constitutional right to do so if I choose. Unfortunately, every time I feel like trysting (my personal favorite of Silber’s innumerable euphemisms), I’m made to feel like a criminal.

As I may have mentioned one or seven times in these pages, I am engaged. What I don’t think I’ve revealed before is that Brooke, my fiancée, is not a Boston University student. In fact, she goes to school some four hours away. So, every time I want her to come visit me in my Guest Policy-monitored Student Village apartment, I have to undergo a retinal scan and give urine. Well, urine if I’m lucky. At long last, the secret origin of my hatred for the Guest Policy revealed!

The irony of this is I live in an apartment with four single bedrooms. If any trysting were to take place, no one would “be put into the position of being voyeurs.” Any intimate relations that may go on are between me, the love of my life and the stuffed animals on my bed. And I haven’t heard them complaining yet. How about this, Chancellor: If I get a signed letter from all three of my suitemates saying they don’t mind if I engage in “fun and games” in my own room, can I have the woman I’m going to marry sleep in my bed? I’ll even get it notarized.

Folks, I can’t imagine a more bass-ackwards system than the one we have in place now. Take my suitemate for example: His girlfriend lives in an apartment on South Campus. Because she has a roommate sleeping in the room with her, she frequently stays the night in our apartment. Even though it means they have to wake up at 8 every morning to renew their “study” extension (ha!), they chose the option that is more courteous to all the parties involved. What? Students making rational decisions for themselves? What kind of alternate, bizarro world have we stumbled into?

At least they have the study extension option. When Brooke drops in on short notice, or if she wants to stay here more than the paltry three nights allowed by the guest passes, we have to find ways around the rules. I’ve been known to get a guest violation or two in this manner. I don’t mind telling you this because the administration sure knows. They sent me a letter last Friday warning me to cut it out. Then, just for added emphasis, they sent the same letter to my mom. My mom! Which resulted in the following conversation:

Me: Mom, you claim to read my column, so you must know how stupid the Guest Policy is. Anyway, I just wanted to warn you that I’ve been violating it, and you’re going to get a letter about it.

Mom: Is it going to cost me any money?

Me: No.

Mom: Knock yourself out.

It’s the oldest story in the book. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love and get engaged. Boy attends oppressive Orwellian university and decides to live on campus. Boy gets told that his apartment, the place where he lives and sleeps and watches “24,” is not a “weekend love nest.” In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am that boy, and I have something to say to Chancellor Silber: Sometimes a guy or gal just feels like trysting. And sometimes he or she feels like trysting on the weekend. And sometimes, horror of horrors, he or she feels like trysting with someone who might not live in the same dorm or even attend the same school. And if that guy or gal has worked it out with the roommates, or doesn’t have any roommates to speak of, I have just one thing to say to that person: Tryst on, you crazy diamond.