If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

On Wednesday, The Crimson published a horrifying exposé on the reality of Harvard’s mouse problem—and the three long, grueling years that these mice have lived among us. In light of the interspecies war that is being waged in all the river Houses’ dining halls, we ask students, administrators, and Faculty members alike to put away their notebooks, pencils, and testing materials and do their part to fight the mice.

We demand that the Undergraduate Council, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Corporation, and the Magic Club put all their other priorities on hold indefinitely. They must hold secret emergency meetings to draw up strategies for our next move in this horrendous influx of vermin (henceforth referred to as the Infestation). Meeting topics should include, but not be limited to: the relocation of the mice to Harvard Medical School’s research laboratories, awarding tenure to successful and committed exterminators, and the logistics associated with maintaining a trained group of hungry cats in every river House.

The Infestation is, without a doubt, one of the greater security threats that Harvard has recently encountered. This problem has intensified in the wake of University President Lawrence H. Summers’ resignation, and that’s no coincidence. The fall of executive power within the school was nothing but an opportunity for vermin. With Summers out of the way, mice have ruthlessly and methodically infiltrated our food reserves—our most vulnerable area—and seem hell-bent on blockading our resources and starving us out of our residences. Although their actions may seem like random and isolated acts in violation of the health code, these mice are calculating and evil. Their radical ideology is a threat to our way of living at Harvard. We strongly advise the Presidential Search Committee to take the urgency of this situation into account by seriously considering candidates with a background in pest-control, and we ask that they expedite the search process in order to have a new president by breakfast tomorrow morning. Or lunchtime, at the very latest.

And yet, it is not enough to call the administration to arms. Not even the combined power of the undergraduate community will be enough to end this scourge. According to Wikipedia, two mice can produce up to 5,000 offspring per year. Judging by the mouse activity data collected in Adams House since 2003, we could have at least 15,000 mice on our hands—and only 6,500 undergraduates to challenge them. We need professionals.

We’ve had some discouraging words from Robert Gogan, Harvard’s supervisor of waste management. He said that it’s unrealistic to expect that the University will be able to eliminate its mouse population entirely. Thank you, Mr. Gogan. But what about the opinion of Harvard’s Supervisor of Infestation Management? Harvard doesn’t have one? Right. Harvard, once again, has failed to meets its students’ needs and appoint the appropriate representative. We propose the postponement of any more suggestions from non-Infestation specialists until we elect the proper authority. And we expect the new authority not to succumb to the defeatist mentality that has allowed the mice to creep into our kitchens in the first place.

In terms of responsibility for this security breach, we acknowledge that snacking mice that leave the dining halls are outside of the kitchen manager’s jurisdiction and are therefore under the authority of the house manager, who works in tandem with the brave warriors of Alpert and Best Pest Company. But there are already too many Orkin men responding to too many supervisors. We need to centralize eradication services—having a multitude of hired exterminators reporting to different sources is both logistically problematic and makes Harvard vulnerable to double-agents who report back to the mice. We call for the formation of a new University-level committee whose purpose it is to efficiently and effectively monitor and eradicate the vermin problem in the dining halls of river Houses. We propose they dub themselves “Mouse Busters.” (We suspect “The Mouseketeers” to already be copyrighted.)

Take any action necessary, Mouse Busters. The fate of Harvard lies in your hands.