I am almost definite that the North Fayerweather dormitory is haunted. Don't be alarmed, I understand that we live a sheltered life here at Dartmouth and that for most of us our idea of a crisis is forgetting to put in hair gel before going to the gym. But we need to now accept the idea that we could be facing a major paranormal infestation problem.
I bet a lot of you are saying to yourself, "What a bunch of hogwash! I don't believe in ghosts!" Now don't be so quick to dismiss me. First of all, anyone who regularly uses the phrase "hogwash" isn't in any position to be criticizing and secondly, I have several pieces of circumstantial evidence and an official-looking newspaper column with which to support my claim.
Basically, what led me to the conclusion that my dorm is haunted is the following series of "unusual" events that occurred over the last couple of weeks: the shower stopped producing hot water, the radiator started making loud knocking sounds and the network went down for several days. By themselves, I can see how these events don't seem all that spooky; I mean, it's not like a torrent of blood rushed down our hallway or Maxim published a well-written introspective article, but what was spooky was the way that the College responded to these problems.
To start with, when our shower stopped producing hot water we called the Office of Residential Life to come take a look. After several days some "workmen" showed up, made a very careful examination of our bathroom, retrieved a wide variety of tools from their truck, and then -- and I swear I'm not making this up -- they installed a locking shower door. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't like the locking shower door -- in fact I'm sure now it would be much harder for a wandering vagrant to break into the shower while I'm trying to bathe, but this new door does very little to help the hot water problem! Who were these odd "workmen" with such concern for my bathing-related safety? Were they just confused ORL contractors? (I doubt it.) Were they the ghosts of former students who were brutally murdered while trying to take a shower in this very dorm exactly 100 years ago? (Probably.)
Later that same week another "workman" showed up at my room and convinced me that my radiator was broken and that it needed to be fixed. I tried to tell him that it seemed fine to me, but he would hear none of it and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes adjusting and replacing various components. Sure enough, come that night our radiator started knocking. And this wasn't a pleasant Pamela Anderson at the door looking for a dry t-shirt kind of knocking, but more of a large caliber machine gun being fired into a piece of sheet-metal firmly attached to your ear type of sound. Was this radiator break-down the result of a poorly executed repair job? (Of course not you idiot!) Was it the result of a prank being pulled by the mischievous ghost of a long dead contractor who was killed by a radiator explosion in my very room exactly 100 years ago? (Obviously.)
Finally, that weekend the network connection for the entire first floor of North Fayer went down for three whole days! You could imagine my panic when I discovered that I was cut off from my BlitzMail. I knew there were probably hundreds of very important messages pertaining to "X-10 Home Security Cameras" and "All Natural Weight Loss Plans" piling up in my inbox as I sat helpless in my room with only the "telephone" and "loud shouting" as my means of communication with the outside world. Naturally I called Computing Services, which as it turned out, is an organization whose primary goal is to blame every possible computer related problem on the incompetence of the user. I had the following enlightening conversation with them:
Me: The network connections for all the computers on the first floor of North Fayer are not working.
Computing Service Troll: Hmm, are you sure that the network isn't just a little slow right now?
Me: Yes! Nothing works on any computer.
Computing Service Troll: Okay, why don't you go ahead and check to make sure that the cable from the computer to the Ethernet port is firmly attached.
Me: Are you implying that the cable on every computer on this floor, each of which is attached to a separate Ethernet port, all spontaneously came loose at the exact same instant as the result of some incomprehensible coincidence?
Computing Service Troll: Why don't you also go ahead and make sure that the computer is turned on.
I guess this example doesn't really relate to the dorm being haunted, but it made me kind of mad so I though I would mention it anyways. But back to my major ghost problem. Now as you can imagine I was pretty worried about how to deal with these new supernatural visitors. So I conducted some extensive research on the paranormal -- which consisted mainly of watching the movie "Ghostbusters," a touching film involving Bill Murray dressing up like a UPS delivery man and destroying a good portion of Manhattan with laser beams. Though to be fair, this movie did actually give me a lot of hope in that it portrayed ghosts as being mischievous but basically well-intentioned. This was a welcome change from another movie I saw, House on Haunted Hill, which tended to focus less on ghosts being "playful" and more on ghosts "sucking out people's brains through their eye sockets."
In the end, I'm not quite sure how to handle my dorm being haunted. Moreover, I'm not quite sure how to handle the cold shower or loud radiator either. What I do know is that if anything else breaks down around here, forget ORL, I'm calling an exorcist.
