Chairs in the Yard: Hate It

I would have loved to be present at the meeting where Harvard was deciding what to do with the extra cash it saved by cutting hot breakfast, closing one library, getting rid of paper course catalogues, and increasing tuition.

My guess is that it went something like this: a Barry S. Kane-esque, satchel-wearing administrator with a title that includes either “associate,” “assistant,” or “coordinator” walked into a Holyoke Center office, and triumphantly slammed down a copy of Sky Mall, that useful catalogue that gave us items like the “Hot Diggity Dogger” and a rolling backpack in which you can carry your dog.

Somewhere in between the 24-karat gold copies of Lord of the Rings paraphernalia and the life-sized gorilla lawn ornament, Our Assistant to the Associate Hero must have found neon-colored metal lawn chairs left over from the set of Alice in Wonderland.

Foreseeing the benefits for Cambridge townies who can’t all fit into Lamont and Café Gato Rojo, Harvard decided to order one hundred. Thank God that Assistant to the Associate picked up a copy of Sky Mall on his way back from an administrative retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona.

It’s really a brilliant move if you consider two things. First, the local yard sale and Craig’s List economy needed an injection of seating instruments and scrap metal. Second is that all those times I want to sit and chat with friends and can’t make it to the student center in the quad, Lamont, the Barker Center, Greenhouse, a dining hall, a common room, or the steps of Widener, I can just hang out in the Yard.

The good news is I can now show my dad something tangible that Harvard is doing to improve its students’ lives. That’s better than the $75 UC fee I pay every year, an investment whose lofty returns include an email a month and two student appointments to a Nutritional Information Committee.

But one thing’s for certain: our Assistant to the Associate Hero has great taste—those chairs sure are cute!