Mirror

You are here: Fall of 1970, tucked into Webb dorm, cheering men in neckties on the lawn below you who have just possibly had too much to drink, parents worrying from afar about the exact number of cheering men in neckties. You walk into your bathroom and are met not by a wall of mirrors or vanities or other symbolic female paraphernalia. But, ah, urinals. The thought, “What the hell are we doing with urinals?” occurs to you. But you don’t care because you are smart as a whip; you have men in neckties cheering for your very presence; you have been planted, so to speak, set to seed, in this formerly all-male world; you are faced with this … oddity … and you are, by God, going to personalize it. So, you buy a few plants, making sure the containers are plastic and have holes in the bottom for the water to run through, and, voila, the urinal is transformed into, ahem, the potty.

Next, you, or someone equally as inventive as you, drives over to the A&P at Barracks Road and picks up some sweet potatoes that look like they need to be adopted. You cut them in half and stick the end down into the, well, the bowl of the thing. You laugh and after a few flushes realize: that sucker is going to live. Weeks pass by; you find that sweet potatoes don’t need much light or encouragement. Just an occasional flush. The vine sprouts right about the time your interest wanes. Attentions are diverted. Classes are begun. You and the men in neckties find your way to the Glass Hat, Poe’s, The Virginian. Sweet potatoes nearly forgotten. Lives are begun.