The University of Richmond Collegian 02/09/95

Staff Editorial

by Jeffrey Carl, Opinion Editor

What We Think

an Opinion from the Collegian Staff

“Home Alone”

Oddly enough, many of us consider our apartments or dorm rooms to be our homes. We live there eight months out of the year. We sleep there, study there, relax there, scatter pizza boxes on the floor there and even kick our roommates out of there on certain occasions. A man or woman’s home is his or her castle, as the old phrase goes. We even have a moat to separate boys and girls. And everyone should have the comforts of hearth and home.

Apparently except on spring break, of course. Most of us find somewhere to go on our breaks to get away from it all, but we are not allowed the option to stay in our homes if we so desire. We are kicked out, whether we have somewhere to go or not, unless we get a special permission slip signed by our mother, the dean, the Pope and all three ex-Beatles. We are coldly reminded that these “homes” that we spend so much time in are not really ours, but just rented accommodations like hotel rooms. We can be kicked out for the maid to come clean up and look for evidence of wild fire extinguisher fights or people smoking banana peels. We are not the school’s responsibility over break, and we are on our own.

We are usually not even allowed the chance to come back early. If you come back on Saturday night, tough luck until (hopefully) 10 a.m. on Sunday. Sleep in your car. Be a squatter in the Jepson tower. God forbid that you should be allowed into your own room or apartment a few hours early.

Precisely what is it that the administration or the police or whoever it is that decides this is afraid that we’re going to do if we stay in our apartments or come back a little early? Open crack houses? Build graphite plutonium breeder reactors? Dance around in our underwear without permission? Give ourselves radiation poisoning from watching too much TV? Go stir crazy from having nobody around and go on a killing spree in the nearest post office? Be attacked by the hordes of roving barbarians that emerge from The Fan every night? Wander into the forest, forget to leave a trail of breadcrumbs and be captured by a witch who wants to eat us? Really, we college students aren’t quite that helpless.

The point remains that we are – almost – adults now. We’re supposed to be able to take care of ourselves, even if mommy isn’t watching. In a few scant weeks, we seniors are going to be kicked out of our rooms or apartments for good. You might think that they’d at least let us stick around for one last break.