Dateline — Tuesday morning, Feb.16, 2021.
I woke up to a text message from the Virginia Department of Health informing me that I had contracted the COVID-19 virus. My unfortunate reality quickly set in and I began organizing my things for the not-so-long journey to isolation housing. After talking with Student Health, an associate dean and the Department of Health, I was off to begin my 10-day stay.
I must note that I have remained in strong health throughout my quarantine with very minimal symptoms. I am doing well, and I know that makes me fortunate. I recognize the severity of the current situation at the University and nationwide and do not wish to offend or minimize the struggles of others.
With that being said —
I was the first of my quarantine cohort to arrive at our new housing. I quickly arrived at a rather dismal fear — I was about to spend the next 10 days with nine other male college students without any proper cleaning supplies. My fear quickly turned into a reality when within the first day, one of our two toilet seats had been vandalized by urine. After a thorough investigation, the case remained unsolved and we were forced to proceed without even a modest quantum of justice against the villain. Then came the case of the serial non-flusher. Someone — likely one of nine male first-year University-student suspects — was unwilling to simply bend over and flush his waste away. If not the seat-urine culprit, this was a perpetrator copycat of sorts. Again, our investigation ran cold, and we thought there was no hope. But one afternoon — just as we were about to drop the inquiry — the culprit made a mistake. He forgot to flush while another was in the bathroom. Arrest made, mystery solved. Punishment to be carried out after release from isolation.
Soon after arriving in isolation, we discovered that the University had mistakenly not provided us with hand soap. And being male college first-year students, not one of us brought any. This led to the inability to properly wash our hands. Clever as we are, we resorted to spraying COVID-19-killing solution onto our hands for all hygiene purposes, which provided us with a false sense of cleanliness. But in a late-night epiphany, one of my isolation brothers announced “We already had COVID-19, how much worse can it get?” Half of the suite began boycotting even using the COVID-19-killing solution. Thankfully, one of our more intellectually inclined peers in Courtenay was nice enough to drop off some of his surplus soap after hearing about the situation. We have three days left in quarantine and four slivers of soap bars for 10 of us – that should work.
Another problem arose when we realized that none of us liked Pepsi, let alone Diet Pepsi. However, the University was unaware of this and continued to provide Pepsi to us with every single meal. Do the math — that is a lot of Pepsi in just a few days. As the conservationists that we are, we refused to throw out full cans of soda. What could we possibly do with them? We are really bored at this point, so we discussed the matter for hours and hours. Inspiration struck — soda pyramid. What better way to spend our days than demonstrating our support for the School of Architecture by crafting a Pepsi structure? Our masterpiece was underwhelming at first, but as the days went on and the soda cans rolled in, it slowly grew to breathtaking heights and our boredom remained in check.
Another struggle with dorm cleanliness came when we realized that the members of our cabal who were inclined to stay up late and sleep in late were a lot less inclined to maintain cleanliness than their counterparts. For an early riser like myself, this meant waking up in frat- house-like conditions every morning and being faced with the moral quandary of whether I should clean up or let those late night “gentlemen” sit in their filth as a punishment for their actions. The obvious problem was that I had nowhere else to go, and thus I was also stuck in their filth. I was beaten. Several days of pleading and discussion with other members of the suite confirmed that there was no end to their filth toleration and I would be forced to clean our common spaces if I had any hope of remaining sane.
Though I have a few days left in my stay I am optimistic about the possibility of further growth in our dorm maintenance and an enhanced ability to avoid any further issues. Oh wait, my suitemate just locked himself out of his suite because he was having a mustard fight -- I’m screwed.
Malachy Dwyer is a Humor columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at humor@cavalierdaily.com.
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