The morning begins as I leap out of bed with a smile on my face, shoulder on my aquamarine robe and skip down the hall to the Keeney bathroom. I burst through the door and gracefully glide over the shimmering film of water coating the floor. Which sink should I pick today? Alas, every morning I am stuck between a sink that trickles politely and one that sprays like a firehose. I brush my teeth with the firehose for time’s sake, and then go to dry my hands. What joy! Somebody has moved the trash can directly under the air dryer again. The paper towels fly everywhere in a beautiful white flourish. “Is this… my first snow?” I think to myself in awe, holding out my hands as giant paper snowflakes spiral toward the ground. When the weather finally lets up, I diligently shove the waste back into our itty bitty 2×2 trash bucket, humming Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” as I begin to reshape the ol’ Mount Everest of dirty paper towels and hygiene products.
As a Woman in Humanities, the shower is a wonderful puzzle to begin my day with at least a smidge of logical, methodical thought. First, I hang my keys and then my towel to free my hands to pull back the slimy curtain. Then, I step into the shower, and go to hang my robe on the hook which has been thoughtfully placed outside the shower stall.
Essentially, I play a real-life game of Operation, carefully reaching my arm between the shower curtain and wall to hang up the robe. Touch either side and BUZZ!— looks like the Keeney cooties got you today! Slowly, I have mastered the art and leave the shower every morning with a triumphant “whoop”, having foiled the Keeney cooties’ evil plan once again.
I end the morning’s excursion by loitering around the toilet stalls, where only half have been flushed properly because saving water means saving a little extra poo too! Finally, I take a healthy two minutes to disassociate, intently stare at myself in the full length mirror, and reflect on every embarrassing thing I possibly could have done in the last week. “Goodbye, Keeney bathroom!” I wail as I reluctantly take my leave.
No longer will I suffer the pained looks and “sorry”s that follow when I tell other first-years my place of residence. Dare I say, she (Keeney) has more character than any of us will ever possess in our lifetimes. I have seen the likes of her so-called bathroom superiors: Metcalf, Miller, Andrews, even the private MoChamp bathrooms. Let me tell you— I was not swayed in the slightest. Where is the life?! Where is your beautiful mural of intertwined wet hair, a symbol of our Keeney sisterhood, strewn across the walls? Where is the hardened neon blue toothpaste in your sinks? Paint moistened over decades of condensation peeling off your walls?
Metcalf? The marble granite countertops are sterile, uninviting, and cold. Andrews? The showers stalls are too big— very much giving existential crisis. And again, not a single hair to be seen! How will they clone you in 200 years when the coast line creeps inland and the rubble of Brown University surfaces in the Atlantic? Think about the future! The legacy of Brown will be us Keenonians, not you traceless, hairless North Campus folk.
Keep bragging about your “changing stalls” and “lounges” and “personal sinks”— I don’t care. At Keeney, amongst the 1×1 showers and baby blue mildewed floors, I am home, I am safe, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.