Where and when, then, is the restless problem solver to find a cause? During a particularly fruitful bowel movement perhaps. Jack Lindeman ’11, a candidate for USG president this year, told The Daily Princetonian in an e-mail: “I decided to run because over the past two-and-a-half years, I have had one major complaint about Princeton. That is the quality of toilet paper.” Jest or not, the toilet paper issue has continually reared its head over the past couple years. Toilet paper, being the king of the paper products, ought to be considered, really. Fortunately for us Princeton students, we have problem solvers like Lindeman working on our behalf to seek out problems in the most unlikely places. I would not dare to underestimate the difficultly in assessing the “one major complaint about Princeton.”
In fact, there seems to be such a dearth of problems to solve that we’ve taken to creating our own. By introducing two-ply toilet papers in the bathroom, we’ve solved two problems: First, we’ve improved the treatment of our behinds, and second, created more problems to solve by laying the foundations for a future campaign that will feature the replacement of our new two-ply toilet paper with a more sustainable option.
Another current problem-solving campaign has perhaps more noble intentions: The campaign against Chiquita bananas. Having read the flyers that have been strewn about campus (in a particularly un-environmentally friendly fashion, I might add), I find myself unable to readily enjoy a banana as I would have only weeks ago. However impractical the switch to Fair Trade bananas may be economically, I wouldn’t condone the return to the cheaper banana alternative so long as my heart is still intact. I’d like to, perhaps unfairly, label the banana campaign as the product of the desperate hunt for problems led by restless humanitarianivorous creatures avoiding complacency.
Here at Princeton, our lives are unsullied by any inconveniences. Our buildings are immaculate ... I’ve seen the same handrail repainted twice over this past semester. At Princeton, buildings and grounds are barren of problems.
When the toilet in the middle stall of my second-floor bathroom in Whitman started refusing to flush and instead emitted strange smells, Building Services immediately recognized the enormous gravity and urgency of the situation. Within minutes of having placed the call, I received an e-mail confirming my complaint, and within an hour, a man in a jumpsuit appeared to repair the toilet.
I was awed. I recalled the eight-hour timeframe a New York City plumber might give you. That is, of course, after the days or even weeks it might take to coax the plumber to come to your house to begin with. By New York standards then, we’re doing pretty well.
So I considered the readiness and competence of Princeton’s Building Services as being the root cause of the complacency here. Wondering whether this phenomenon might have pervaded colleges across the country, I talked with friends and found this was not the case.
I was told of an incident at an upstate New York college. One night, an inebriated student destroyed or damaged a bathroom stall to the extent that its building services deemed it appropriate to remove all the bathroom stalls. They did so immediately. We commend them for this. We do not commend them for taking over a week to then replace these bathroom stalls, leaving the toilets (and the students) exposed.
This sort of trouble provides college students with all kinds of causes in which to be active; whereas at Princeton, we are deprived of any such trouble. (For this, I salute you, Building Services!)
To overcome my own inactivity, I may take up a campaign offering the installation of Fair Trade bidets as a solution for our produce and paper-product conundrums. Until then, I will support those that do find causes, while myself remaining unproductive and complacent with the satisfaction of having fully functional bathrooms.
Monica Greco is a freshman from Brooklyn, New York. She can be reached at mgreco@princeton.edu.
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