A disturbing battle has been taking place within the RC sections, one that threatens the freedom of self-expression and ultimately the very existence of the free world. Now I am blowing the lid off this hidden conflict. The Bathroom Privileges War has erupted and is consuming many rooms with the fires and accusations of contempt, of impertinence, of insolence. It is a battle that is being fought on the front lines: is going to the bathroom during class disrespectful, or is it a right?
I am here to report that the free-whizzing citizenry is losing the battle. Perhaps you have seen one of the unfortunate victims of this new war. Perhaps it was a baseball-capped gentleman chugging water throughout a 100-minute BGIE lecture, trying to shake off his hangover from the night before. Perhaps it was a fashionably-dressed female, drinking coffee to stay awake in a Strategy class that spanned through the (P) case. Perhaps it was you yourself, crossing your legs and clenching every muscle in your abdomen for fear you might spill over like a little teapot. These students’ thoughts are not about participation or risk-free environments – they are about survival. Noble students and adults are they all, and victims of the war they shall continue to be unless we act.
The time is now to combat this evil force. How we define ourselves and our bodily functions now will affect generations of HBS students. For are we children, needing to raise our classcards in the spirit of abusing the technical question in order to ask permission from our disrespected elders or classmates if we may Number 1 or Number 2 in the potty?
Nay, are we weak – shall we leave foul puddles of in deference to our curtailed bladder release? Or are we men, who will stand up and defend our freedom, freedom from tyranny, freedom to exit the classroom at will and discharge, freedom to tinkle up and down the halls of Aldrich like an untrained puppy? For if we are not free to urinate, are we really truly free?
I leave you with some words from Shakespeare:
To pee, or not to pee: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler for the section to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous renal tension,
Or to take leave against a sea of coffee,
And by tinkling end them? To piss, to whiz:
No more; and by a piss to say we end
The sideache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, – tis a micturition
Devoutly to be wish’d. To pee, to hose;
To piss: perchance a dream: ay, there’s the rub:
For in that piss of death what grades may come…
May the golden shower of a thousand sections rain down upon thee!
