Published: March 12, 2009

Ah, the golden days of Fordham undergraduate life—the setting sun of my youth, the shutting door on my potential. At this point, graduation looms like an ever-growing shadow on the X-rays of my poor, black lungs.

I owe Fordham a great deal: for the friends I’ve made, for the classes I’ve barely passed and especially for the many, many laughs I’ve had about the bewilderingly arbitrary administrative decisions that have significantly affected all of our lives.

In about 10 weeks, I will smile, walk up onto a stage to the sound of wild cheering, be handed a diploma by a person less important than I, do a little dance and, hopefully, go live the rest of my life. As this happy day fast approaches, I can’t help but want to offer Fordham some constructive criticism on two completely uncritical issues.

First, it’s not a big secret that women have… womanly parts. In 1996, hundreds of these womanly parts met each other at a Gertrude Stein book signing and formed a playwriting club, at which “The Vagina Monologues” was written. And every year since then, privileged, upper-class white girls who attend private universities and have never truly faced gender violence attempt to put on the show in a misguided attempt to empower other privileged, upper-class white girls who already know everything the show is trying to say.

Fordham administration apparently hates this show almost as much as I do—allow me to paraphrase the edict given to Student Activities: Under no circumstances are we to give any money to that group of silly girls who are attempting to undermine the authority of the Catholic Church by putting on that out-dated, angry feminist play that probably said some ground-breaking things 13 years ago but is incredibly out-of-touch with modern feminism in Manhattan, “The Vagina Monologues.”

For the past few years, ISIS, that small group of women (and maybe one guy), tries to put on “The Vagina Monologues” at Fordham. And every year, Fordham balks. I think it’s the ber-progressive, jaw-droppingly fresh messages behind the show that scare the administration: rape = bad, women with jobs = good.

Come on, just let them put on the show without any sort of confrontation. Then those silly girls will finally realize that feminism has moved on and will put all of their energies of “fighting the men” into a cause that actually matters in the 21st century. Panda liberation, perhaps?

But while all students should be amused/outraged by Fordham’s treatment of “The Vagina Monologues,” a darker, more disturbing scandal plagues Lincoln Center’s residents. Those of you who dorm, or have ever visited the dorms, know that there is a sort of quiet genius that organizes and manages McMahon Hall. And by “quiet genius,” I mean “douchebaggery.” And nowhere is that douchbaggery more obvious than at the Annual Stressful Stupidity Fest that is the Housing Lottery.

What better way could there possibly be to place Fordham’s finest residents (famous for procrastination, loud complaints and melodrama) into next year’s housing assignment than by a process that’s full of deadlines and haphazard number systems, topped off by two hours of angry mobbing in a tiny, tiny holding room?

The one year I actually attended the housing lottery (I usually send one of my Asian slaves in my stead), a riot broke out among the groups that wanted room 10B. You know, 10B, the suite with two bedrooms AND two bathrooms. Ooooh. Eden.

Many people got their hearts broken that day, when that black Sharpie went up and 10B was crossed off the list of open apartment choices. The tiny, tiny holding room with its 35-person maximum occupancy and its 350 actual occupants crackled with furious, invisible electricity. This is what could have happened next:

The group of girls who got 10B will be strutting out the door when another group of girls steps up to them. “You bitches!” they would scream, “You only beat us by 671 lottery points!” They all start slapping each other, a midget gets kneed in the face, the fire-retardant carpet inexplicably catches on fire, the dancers practicing their high kicks take out a good Catholic girl while she prays for deliverance and an RA gets trampled to death trying to stop Fordham’s four straight guys from peeing on a wall.

In my fantasies, someone always dies.

While that didn’t actually happen, who’s to say that it’s not a possibility? I personally haven’t been that averse to living at the dorms (my Asian slaves take care of floor meetings, guest passes and judicial interrogations), but I want to warn Fordham that this lottery system doesn’t quite work, particularly the angry mob situation happening in room 205. Might I suggest singular group meetings with the times set up as per lottery number? No? Okay. Sorry, RAs.

“The Vagina Monologues” and the housing lottery have no bearing on the real world. AIDS still exists, and gays still can’t get married. But remember, college is an important stepping-stone in the river of life, a stepping-stone on which many people have to stand while trying to cross the white rapids of coming-of-age. Since we chose to go to school here and countless future teenagers will choose to go to school here, don’t we owe Fordham some good, old-fashioned constructive criticism? I sure think so.